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A Kansan Abroad. 
Pike of Pike's Peak. 

The World a School. 



KANSAS ABKOAD 



BY 



NOBLE L. PBENTIS. 



<*r 



TOPEKA, KANSAS: 

GEO. W. MARTIN, KANSAS PUBLISHING HOUSE. 

1878. 



G * FT OF 



Copyrighted, 1878, by Noble L. Prentis. 



PREFATORY. 



The letters collected in this volume, under the general title 
of A Kansan Abroad, appeared in the Topeka Commonwealth 
during the summer and autumn of 1877. 

The sketch, Pike of Pike's Peak, was first delivered at To- 
peka, February 19th, 1877, under the patronage of the Kansas 
State Historical Society. Afterward, in the cheerful month of 
March, the author went around the country with his production 
in the form of a "lecture." It was not as funny as was expected, 
and, as a lecture, was not an overwhelming success. It now ap- 
pears for the first time in print; and may it find more readers 
than it ever did hearers. 

The World a School, originally delivered as a commence- 
ment-day address before the Kansas State Agricultural College, 
was published in pamphlet form by order of the Board of Regents 
of that institution, and, shortly after its delivery, it appeared in 
several Kansas newspapers. It is believed that the pamphlets 
and newspapers have all been used up by this time, and that there 
are people who will welcome the address in a preservable form. 

N. L. P. 
Topeka, February, 1878. 



FROM SHORE TO SHORE. 



COMING down town in New York on the morning of July 
4th, 1877, at an early hour, there was not much bunting 
visible flying from residences or public buildings, but when the 
pier was reached from which the harbor could be surveyed, a dif- 
ferent sight was presented. Everything afloat was gay with the 
red, white and blue. A ship is always national. It is a fragment 
of the country floating out to sea. In the most secluded harbor of 
the most remote land, or in the midst of ocean, the hail is always 
promptly responded to with " The American ship, John Smith," 
and the "old gridiron" gracefully waves the same reply. 

But it is severe on an American's feelings to cross to Jersey 
City on such a morning, with his country's flag waving every- 
where, and take passage on a British ship. It was doubly trying 
for one among whose childish recollections was numbered the 
launch of the magnificent Collins steamer Baltic, and who re- 
membered the pride with which Americans looked on the Collins 
line, now swept from the ocean. But there was no help for it. 
Our marine has been protected too much, or too little — I do not 
pretend to know which ; and if you wish to go abroad now from 
New York, you must do so under the shadow of a foreign flag. 

The Bothnia lay at her pier, long and huge and black, the lat- 
est success in ship-building of the house of Cunard, for fifty years 
the most successful of ship owners. Think of it — fifty years 

(5) 



b A KAN SAN ABROAD. 

sending ships to sea, and never yet with a vessel lost! Luck is 
nowhere in comparison with this. And, by-the-way, if you wish 
to go to England, you had better embark on a Cunarder. You 
get there ten days earlier at least by the operation, for when you 
step on deck in New York you are in Great Britain already. It's 
all British, from the keel up. The massiveness and plainness of 
everything about you, the ponderous wood-work and brass-work, 
utterly destitute of ornament, show you that you are among 
people who are all for solidity, and opposed to "flummery, you 
know." 

Like ship, like man. Whether the officers of the Cunard 
ships are built on the Clyde, for the use of the company, I can- 
not say, but I am inclined to think so. The commander of the 
Bothnia, Capt. McMickan, a relative, perhaps, of the veteran ho- 
tel navigator who walks the quarter-deck of the Tefft House, 
was standing about when I reached the pier, and various sub- 
ordinates were scattered around. They looked enough alike to 
be cousins — big, bluff, red-faced fellows, with a width of shoulder 
and a circumference of abdomen fearful for a small passenger to 
contemplate. All of course wore the Cunard uniform, of solid 
dark blue, and not unlike that of our naval officers. I do not 
suppose a cannon ball could knock one of these officers over. 
Yet, with all their mastiff-like looks, they are not bad fellows, 
and certainly they know their business. 

We were to start at ten o'clock, but we did not. There was a 
great crowd of passengers to embark, and no end, it seemed, of 
baggage, and there was hurrying to and fro. In the meantime, 
having nothing else to do, I wondered whether the Bothnia pro- 
posed to do anything about "the Fourth." In time she did. Bang! 



FROM SHORE TO SHORE. 7 

went a gun, then another, and the white and crimson and azure of 
the American ensign rose to the fore, and long lines of gay-col- 
ored flags commenced rising higher and higher, creeping over the 
ends of the yards to the mast-heads until they formed three lofty 
arches of flags, and the great Bothnia was dressed like a hride. 

The deck was crowded with passengers and their friends, but at 
last the bell rang impatiently as a signal for the land's-people to 
go ashore, and then the kissing — but it's of no use for one man to 
try to describe everything. The deck was cleared of all save those 
who were to go, a tug commenced puffing and laboring somewhere 
about, and, backing nearly across the river, the huge mass swung 
slowly about, and just as her prow faced seaward, it was noon on 
the Fourth of July. A flash broke from the dark side of an 
American man-of-war lying in the stream, there was a puff of 
smoke and a crash, then came another tongue of fire and cloud of 
smoke from the dark ports of Castle William, and then the boom 
of a gun, and, looking down the harbor, a cloud of smoke was seen 
rising about the forts at the Narrows. And so, greeted by the joy- 
ful guns announcing the 101st anniversary of American Independ- 
ence, the Bothnia went to sea. 

I am not going to give a journal of the voyage. It was as un- 
eventful as a trip from the corner of Sixth and Kansas avenues to 
North Topeka. The ocean was, day after day, as calm' as a duck 
pond. There was no rolling, no tumbling about, and the notes 
which this author had prepared in advance, describing the hor- 
rors of sea-sickness, proved of no use. There was little of it on 
board, and the few sufferers retired to their state-rooms and there 
remained. 

Among three hundred passengers, all sorts of people were to 



8 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

be found. No very distinguished people, however, sailed in the 
Bothnia. There was Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, looking round-shoul- 
dered and haggard, after his tremendous exertions for Mr. Samuel 
J. Tilden ; and there was Mrs. Hewitt, a daughter of Peter Cooper, 
and Miss Hewitt, a nice girl, who played very well on the banjo. 
There was Mr. Joseph Seligman, a portly old Hebrew of benev- 
olent aspect, who was once refused admission to Mr. Hilton's 
hotel, at Saratoga, whereat there was a great row; there was a big 
fellow named Corbin, said to be a South Carolina Eepublican poli- 
tician of eminence ; there was Mr. George Jones, of t^e New York 
Times, whom nearly everybody on board supposed till the last 
moment was a Scotchman returning to his native land ; and there 
was Col. Chambers, U. S. A., going to Turkey. Of course, some- 
body "formerly of Kansas" had to be on hand: the representative 
this time was Gen. A. L. Lee, formerly of Doniphan county, and 
known to all old Kansas citizens and soldiers. 

Antipathies and friendships are formed very readily on ship- 
board, and last for the voyage. The association at table usually 
lays the foundation for acquaintance. At "our end" of our table 
was Mr. Bobert Hemingray, of Covington, Kentucky, a brother 
of Judge Hemingray, formerly of Leavenworth, and with him 
his daughter, Miss Mintie Hemingray. There was a fine straight 
German, with a white mustache and imperial, Mr. George Bitter, 
of Vera Cruz, Mexico, who from over thirty years' residence in 
that country, interspersed with many trips to all parts of the 
world, had acquired the languages and the graces of half a dozen 
peoples. To Herr Bitter, with his good stories, told in English, 
interspersed with French, Spanish and German, the undersigned, 
and the members of the late "Club Mexique," will always feel 



FROM SHORE TO SHORE. 9 

indebted, and especially the member known in the society as 
"Mr. Kansas." Then there was Mr. Jolly, a Scotchman, from 
Tampico, Mexico, the most successful conundrum - maker on 
board ; then there was the Fitzgerald family, from Toronto, 
"douce honest" people; and occasionally there was talk from a 
young lady, born in Switzerland, who had lived long in the 
province of Courland, Russia, and who was voyaging to Sweden. 

As I have said, the voyage was uneventful. The ocean was 
quite tame. Occasionally a whale spouted ; occasionally a lot of 
porpoises gambolled about the ship ; occasionally a sailing vessel 
came into sight and faded out of it, or a steamer glided by — and 
that was all. There were five meals a day, and some people de- 
voured all of them ; there was a small library, but reading at sea 
is not a success. They got up concerts in the saloon, and there 
was divine service on Sunday. According to the regulations of 
the Cunard line, the captain read the Episcopal service. I heard 
the Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales prayed for for 
the first time ; a petition was also inserted for the President of the 
United States. An American preacher followed, a good-natured 
old gentleman, who seemed desirous of praising everything Brit- 
ish, and who, figuratively speaking, took a seat between the hind 
legs of the British lion, and wrapped the tail of that noble beast 
about his neck. 

It was to be only ten days at sea, but we longed for land. I 
shall not soon forget when I saw it again. 

It was on the morning of the 13th of July — in the early, misty 
morning. Looking afar we saw something like a low-lying cloud. 
They said it was Ireland. Then a little boat came dancing across 
the waves with "Cork Pilot" on her sails. Then there was some- 



10 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

thing ahead that looked like a ship, but it did not move; the 
mist came down and shut it out, then lifted again, and there, like 
a great white uplifted finger, was Fastnet lighthouse, standing on 
its gray rock in the midst of the waves. Then the curtain of mist 
was uplifted everywhere, and we glided along in full sight of the 
bold shores, purple and gray, crested with the green fields, bright 
indeed as any emerald, of Ireland. So we passed the bold a 01d 
Head of Kinsale," and off the entrance of Queenstown harbor 
the ponderous engines of the Bothnia, for the first time in nine 
days, stood still. Again we heard guns, but this time it was the 
sullen roar of British cannon from the forts on the dark heights 
at the harbor's mouth. A tender came off and took some passen- 
gers and the mail. We could see little of Queenstown, and I 
remembered little of it, save that here is buried an obscure Irish 
clergyman, whose little poem, "The Burial of Sir John Moore," 
has stirred the hearts of two nations. 

The tender moved off, and the great engines heaved and 
throbbed again. The next day at noon we saw a forest of masts; 
great docks; miles of frowning warehouses; giant steamers plow- 
ing to and fro, everywhere the marks of boundless wealth, iron 
courage, immense mechanical skill, tireless industry — this was 
Liverpool — this was England. 



SOME FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 



IT is a solemn thing for a Kansas man to land in Liverpool on 
a rainy day. Coming from an open country full of brightness 
and lit up by a cloudless sun, the bigness and blackness, the inner 
and outer darkness of Liverpool is well nigh appalling. A turbid 
river, foaming and tossing like the sea ; steamers black as mid- 
night plowing to and fro ; miles of low-lying warehouses, their 
elate roofs gleaming dimly in the rain ; spires and chimneys 
looming up spectrally in the mist ; docks that seem the work of 
giants, skirting the stream as far as the eye can reach ; ships' 
masts like the trees of a girdled forest; ship-yards a maze of 
timbers; — these are the outlines of Liverpool as seen from the 
steamer's deck. 

The American republican realizes, too, that he has, in our par- 
lance, "struck" a new sort of government. The tugs that circle 
around bear such names as the " British King," the " Queen," the 
"Koyal George," and the British lion ramps everywhere, and in 
every color and attitude — with his head and tail up, and with both 
those extremities down; on four legs, and two legs; having his 
everlasting controversy with the unicorn, or "going it alone." 
He can be spread out in more shapes than the American eagle, 
and the British artists put him through more crookednesses than 
were ever attained by a circus contortionist. 

But there are familiar things everywhere. Leaving the land- 
(11) ' 



12 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

ing stage and turning into Water street, the first thing this writer 
saw was a poster announcing the virtues of Perry Davis's Pain 
Killer. Was it not a noble thought? — America stretching out her 
hand with a bottle of Perry Davis's Pain Killer to soothe the 
anguished bowels of England! Gen. Grant did not need to come 
to promote harmony between countries which cure the same kind 
of stomach-ache with the same medicine. 

Walking along the streets, one is impressed with the enormous 
strength and solidity of everything — the pavements of great 
stones ; the warehouses which look as if they had stood for all time 
and were ready for eternity; the plate-glass windows; the enor- 
mous amount of brass-work everywhere ; and the big knockers on 
the doors, which would break in an American door. Everything 
is in the same proportion : horses as big as elephants, shod with 
high-corked shoes, hauling a load for a small locomotive, go clank- 
ing up and down the rocky ways; and omnibuses are rolling about, 
drawn by three great horses abreast ; and the street car, lately in- 
troduced, is a huge, lumbering contrivance with a circular stair- 
way for the people to climb up on top — for English people love 
to ride outside in the rain. 

The greatness of England extends even to these little things; 
but the fierce pride of this people, their unconquerable bull-dog 
courage in war, is commemorated everywhere in great works. The 
docks, the like of which exist nowhere else, bear the names of Wa- 
terloo, Trafalgar and Nelson. Wellington looks afar from the top 
of an enormous pillar, and Nelson is everywhere in stone and 
in bronze. Liverpool sprang from the sea, and the name of the 
greatest of England's sea fighters is naturally the most prominent. 
Next to Nelson and Wellington, the most frequent name is that 



SOME FIRST I3IPRESSI0NS. 13 

of the statesman Canning, who was a Liverpool man. It is odd, 
but a name quite as well known in America as any of these is 
that of Mrs. Hemans, who was born here, yet she has no monu- 
ment. 

The public buildings are enormous, all of stone, and built 
to last forever. I should imagine that no sensible earthquake 
would presume to attack them. St. George's Hall, the Museum, 
the new Art Gallery, the Exchange, the City Hall — all huge, and 
all black. Take, for illustration, the capitol at Topeka, make it 
four times as large, and then paint it all over with a mixture of 
equal parts of soot and rain-water, and you have some idea of 
Liverpool public architecture. I will not venture to go into de- 
tails as to the expense of these things. It is safe to say that the 
cost of the public buildings of Liverpool is equal to the annual 
revenues of many a kingdom. 

And yet they call this a new town. A Liverpool man apolo- 
gizes for the youth and rawness of his town — it is only four or 
five hundred years old, and you must make allowances. It is 
not only a new town, but it is a growing town. Blocks on blocks 
of new buildings are being built on what but a few years ago 
were green fields. 

American tourists do not, as a rule, I think, visit Liverpool. 
It is only a stopping-place, and yet it seems to me that the second 
city in the kingdom is well worth a prolonged visit. American 
commerce has been a great stay of this city, and the intercourse 
has left its trace. In my rambles about the town I met with 
Washington street, Maryland and Baltimore streets, and other 
traces of the influence of America. The American population 



14 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

must be considerable, and American goods are everywhere adver- 
tised. 

There is much to see in Liverpool — more than at first sight 
would be suspected. I will now mention but one place of in- 
terest, the free library and museum. 

The American idea is, that the nobility of a country are a nui- 
sance — a relic of a barbarous time; that an aristocracy grinds 
down the people and wrings from them their hard earnings, and 
is generally and specially a curse. In England, however, I am 
inclined to think the people get their money back, and perhaps 
a little more, and the museum is a case in point. There was 
once a cock-fighting Earl of Derby — which you will understand 
is not Derby, but "Darby." This old rooster had a passion for all 
the fowl creation — beginning with game-cocks, and extending to 
everything that wore feathers. He ransacked the world for birds, 
and there is a story that when he was about to shuffle off this 
mortal coil, he requested that a couple of game-cocks be pitted 
on his bed where he could see them fight; and so he literally 
"died game." His immense collection of birds was bequeathed 
to the free library and museum of Liverpool, where it may now 
be seen. I am free to say that I have never seen its like, and that 
the Smithsonian collection at Washington is small in comparison. 
The museum is very extensive in other departments, but I would 
say to an American, don't forget to go to the museum and see the 
birds. 

I visited, also, the free library in search of some information 
about the bloody British cavalryman, Banastre Tarleton, who 
made us so much trouble in the Carolinas during the Revolution, 



SOME FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 15 

and who after the war returned to Liverpool, and for years repre- 
sented the borough in Parliament. I found his own account of 
his campaigns, a straightforward, soldiery story enough, and quite 
complimentary to Gen. Washington, but could find nothing about 
the man himself; nor could I find a man in Liverpool who knew 
anything about him, although Banastre and Tarleton streets are 
ancient thoroughfares in the city. Such is fame on the different 
sides of the Atlantic. 

I think Liverpool is somewhat overlooked by American trav- 
elers. Doubtless, a prejudice exists because Liverpool was so 
strongly Southern in sympathy during the Eebellion, and the 
name of the Alabama is associated with that of Birkenhead, just 
across the Mersey. This should not, however, work injustice to 
a really interesting place, and one of the great seaports of the 
world. 

It may be proper to say that I was placed under great obliga- 
tions, while in Liverpool, to Mr. Joseph E. Worrall, a brother of 
Prof. Henry Worrall, of Topeka. This gentleman exercised a hos- 
pitality which could not possibly be exceeded on our side of the 
Atlantic; and as a proof that good qualities run in families, the 
writer will say that one of the brightest days of his life was spent 
in the old town of Chester with Walter Worrall, the son of one 
and nephew of the other of the Worralls aforesaid. 



VERY OLD ENGLAND. 



TALKING with a friend in Liverpool, one day, I said, "I be- 
lieve all Americans go to Chester?" "Yes," he responded, 
with truly British directness; "all who have any sense do." Ac- 
cordingly, I decided to go to Chester. 

We crossed by the railway boat to Birkenhead, and by railway, 
third-class, to Chester. It is time for some American tourist to 
arise and confess that while in England he did ride third-class, 
and did not stop at the Langham in London, and I will assume 
the responsibility. 

Eiding third-class, no "noble jukes" or members of the royal 
family were found in the compartments, but several very respect- 
able-appearing men, and among them a manufacturer from one of . 
the suburbs of Liverpool, who had a melancholy interest, in 
America, from the fact that he had not long before lost a son in 
the wreck of the ill-fated Circassian, on the Long Island coast. 
To this gentleman I was much indebted for information during 
the first part of a long stroll in the quaint old town of Chester. 

It is questionable if anybody knows the real age of Chester. I 
am quite sure I do not. For all I know to the contrary, Adam 
may have been one of the original town company. At any rate, 
it is very, very old. The Saxons had a town on this pleasant spot 
by the river Dee, and the Romans built a wall there, and the Nor- 
mans came and ravaged around after their fashion; and all sorts 

(16) 



VERY OLD ENGLAND. 17 

of queer people, now happily dead, built queer houses for the 
Americans, the last race of men made, to come and look at. 

An odd old town is Chester, with streets that crook every way; 
with black-faced old houses that lean over and look at you as you 
pass; with a great square-towered cathedral that lifts its high- 
shouldered roof above everything else ; and finally, with a famous 
old wall which circles around, in and out and everywhere — cross- 
ing the streets oh arches, keeping company for a while with a 
slow-going canal, then crossing the railroad, then passing under 
the walls of a castle, and so on " to the place of beginning." 

Chester has three special objects of pride: "The Rows," the 
cathedral, and the walls ; but before seeing any of these we went to 
a place called the "Old Kitchen." It seems that Chester had the 
bad taste to adhere to that "man of blood, Charles Stuart," who 
lost finally a head which appears to have been of very little ser- 
vice to him or to the kingdom. On the restoration of the Stuarts, 
in the person of Charles II — that exceedingly frisky monarch — 
there were " high jinks" in Chester, and the cavaliers met at this 
"Old Kitchen" to sing profane catches and glees, greatly to the 
disgust, doubtless, of the godly people who lived in a house not 
far off", on the front of which may be seen to this day the words, 
"God's Providence is Mine Inheritance." The room is sur- 
rounded by high-backed oaken chairs, all side by side, where the 
convivial sat and sang, probably till a late hour, as the chairs 
are so contrived that it is difficult to fall out of them. 

"The Rows" are a feature of Chester. For whole blocks the 

j. upper stories of the houses project over, precisely like a Western 

block-house. It is said that this style of building was adopted 

by the worthy burghers of Chester in order that they might the 

better pour down arrows, sticks, stones, hot water and other re- 



18 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

freshments on the heads of the invading Welsh. Under the 
shadow of these overhanging houses you follow a wide stone 
pavement, not on a level, but up and down at all sorts of angles. 
The finest stores in Chester are situated along these arcades, and 
in rainy weather you can walk all over town without getting wet. 
Many of these houses are old, their beams black with time; others 
have been restored in the old form, but of new material, and are 
very handsome. There is an astonishing number of inns and 
drinking-places in Chester, with old-fashioned names. Drovers 
are invited by the sign of "The Pied Bull;" pork packers "pass 
the rosy" at the "Pig and Whistle;" and there is a "White 
Lion" and an "Old Nag's Head." 

The wall was built first, they say, by the Romans, and a few 
stones laid by them still remain ; but endless changes have been 
made by subsequent builders, till it is like the famous American 
gun that had a new lock, stock and barrel, but still remained the 
same gun — in one particular. A broad stone walk runs around 
the inside of the breast-high parapet, and this walk has been for 
a long time the pride, the promenade and the play-ground of 
Chester. The wall follows no grade; it goes up and down, in 
and out; sometimes it runs under gnarled old trees, then it skirts 
along the crest of black rocks high above the canal. Sometimes 
you look down into people's chimneys, and green gardens, and 
then you have a noble prospect of a fine undulating country for 
many miles. For some distance it overlooks a broad, green 
meadow, beyond which is the river Dee, and then it runs close 
to the river and you look down at the brown and brawling stream. 

An American friend — the sun — shone briefly on us, as we, 
young Walter and I, made the circuit of this gray and green and 
red old wall. How indescribably beautiful it was! No written 



VERY OLD ENGLAND. 19 

description, no painter's brush, even, can give an idea of the 
vivid, velvety green of an English rural landscape, seen through 
an atmosphere, half sun, half haze. We passed by the tower from 
whence Charles I saw his army defeated at Eowton Moor, but 
near by a group of chubby English children were found in a state 
of great commotion on the wall. Two little girls were weeping, 
and several short-legged young Britons were running back and 
forth in bewildered excitement. A little girl's hat had blown 
"down and out" to the railroad track below, and nobody dared to 
go down and get it, for the majesty of English law, which for- 
bids walking on railroad tracks, stood between the lost hat and its 
weeping little owner. I am free to say that I cared more for the 
child and her lost hat than for Charles I and his lost battle. To 
go on with our walk : we passed under the walls of the castle, and 
looking up through the embrasures could see the red coats of Her 
Majesty's 106th Regiment at their drill — but we will talk of sol- 
diers some other time. We passed near this the green meadow 
before mentioned, on which is situated the race-course of Chester, 
one of the most famous in the kingdom. 

The famous cathedral was twice visited — in the morning and 
the evening. It has been or is being "restored." It is very old. 
The Saxons furnished some of the work, and several saints with 
barbarous names. The Normans added to the pile — probably 
for piety and pillaging the Normans have never been surpassed. 
Cromwell took no stock in saints not enrolled in his own regi- 
ments. He preferred live saints in buff coats to saints in wood 
and stone, so everything inside of the building was whitewashed 
over ; but now the whitewash is being scraped off and the old 
saints are coming up smiling. Many centuries of grease and 
dirt had accumulated on the curious oaken carvings of the choir, 



20 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

and the wood was all boiled piecemeal in a solution of potash and 
then put together again. The work has gone on under the super- 
intendence of Dean Howson, by voluntary contributions — Dissent- 
ers contributing with others — and has cost enormous sums. There 
is a great chandelier costing a fabulous amount, which will never 
be lighted again, on account of the tremendous heat of the burners. 
It all forms a wilderness of carving and gilding. I walked about 
with the verger the customary round, and then stepped alone into 
the cloisters. Here was no "restoration." Here were pillars 
gnawed nearly in two by the "corroding tooth of time;" here the 
groined roof was black with the clouds of years. The cloisters in- 
closed a little square of shrubbery, green as emerald; the ever old 
and the ever new were here. Man's work falling to blackness and 
decay ; God's work renewed by the perpetually-recurring miracle 
of the spring-time. It was easy to people this shadowy place with 
the dead and gone. Here paced the votaries of an ancient faith ; 
here, under black cowl and gown, were hidden the lives of men ; 
here, perchance, the ambitious dreamed their dreams of churchly 
power; here, perchance, were quenched the longings of a vain 
•world; here, it may be, some heart did break in solitude. 

We attended the choral service in the cathedral in the evening, 
we saw the procession of robed priests and choristers, and watched 
the dim shadows gather in the lofty arches overhead, and the light 
fading out of the gorgeous windows of blue and green and gold. 
The organ roared like the wind in the tree-tops, and echoed far in 
the dim and distant chapels, and the boys' voices rose high and 
clear, or sank soft and low, as they sang of faith in better things 
beyond ; of a temple not made with hands, greater than man has 
ever builded. And, leaving them singing, we took our leave of 
strange, beautiful old Chester. 



OLD SHREWSBURY. 



"We fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock."— Falsiaff. 

MOST travelers going from Liverpool to London, take the 
direct line through Birmingham and the "black coun- 
try." But it occurred to me that manufacturing cities could be 
seen in America, and that I had already seen Pittsburgh, the 
American Birmingham, while, on the other hand, cathedrals and 
castles a thousand years old could not be seen in my own, my 
native land — at least, not without waiting until sometime in the 
year 2776 ; and so I determined to journey the Severn Valley 
route, which takes in its course several very old places, and, be- 
sides, affords a panorama of the Welsh mountains. And so, jour- 
neying through Chester and Wrexham, I came unto Her Majesty's 
old town of Shrewsbury. 

The first piece of fortune that befell me, was, that by pure 
chance, I came upon a certain English inn, where I did " take 
mine ease." Such a dignified and gracious landlady, or rosy 
waiting-maid, or thoroughgoing "Boots," or snowy and mountain- 
like bed, or pleasant dining-room, I did not expect to see again 
in all the Queen's dominions, including Great Britain and Ireland 
and the town of Berwick-on-Tweed. 

The view from my bed-room window when I looked out early 
in the morning, led across the red-tiled and black-slated roofs and 
amid a little forest of chimney-pots to a green, which I think they 
call in Shrewsbury the Kingsland, and beyond this was a high rise 

(21) 



22 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

of ground and rows of poplars and scattered hedges, and beyond 
these the sky. 

Looking out the front windows into the street, the view was 
shut in at a few yards by a curve in the street and the walls of a 
gray old church, as if the street had politely gone around the 
building out of respect for its old age. These old English streets do 
not make abrupt angles, but wind along their narrow way, up hill 
and down, as sinuous as a snake's track. "Lifting up mine eyes," 
in scriptural language, I saw the red-sandstone towers of the an- 
cient castle of Shrewsbury, founded a thousand years ago. 

A gentleman from Sheffield sat opposite at table; in fact, there 
was no one else in the room, for the Englishman loves to take his 
meals as nearly alone as possible, and the table d'hote will be the 
last thing introduced generally into conservative England. I 
think he had business to attend to in the city, but if so, he neg- 
lected it, for all that blessed forenoon we walked up and down, 
in and out of all the narrow, shady streets of Shrewsbury, with- 
out any definite purpose, talking of a hundred different things, 
and stopping occasionally to look or to rest. 

Shrewsbury is one of the famous old towns of England, really 
more prominent four hundred years ago than now. In those 
"good old times" we hear about, bloody work was done in the vi- 
cinity. Here, on the 21st of July, 1403, King Henry IV met the 
fiery-hearted Percy, better known by the name made famous by 
Shakspeare — Hotspur. Here the battle raged all the summer 
day, until 2,300 gentlemen and 6,000 common soldiers were killed. 
The next morning, Worcester and two other noblemen captured 
by the King's victorious forces were beheaded in Shrewsbury, 
and afterward, the dead body of the gallant Hotspur having been 



OLD SHREWSBURY. 23 

found, the senseless corpse was beheaded and quartered, and the 
quarters fixed upon the gates of the town. Those were the "days 
of chivalry." Into this same town, also, David of Wales, a 
brother of the famous Llewellyn, was brought in chains and exe- 
cuted with circumstances of horrible barbarity. For whole cen- 
turies Shrewsbury was the scene of wars, tumults, skirmishes and 
sieges. It is all over now, and Englishmen go far away from the 
old town to die in battle, for, as we stepped into the new church 
of St. Chad — so called to distinguish it from a very old church of 
the same name — we came upon the monuments of the men from 
the vicinity who fell in India during the great mutiny. It seems 
strange that boys go from these green old fields and shady lanes 
to lay their bones on the other side of the earth. But you see it 
everywhere. There is not an old parish church in England that 
does not contain the memorials of English soldiers who died in 
Spain, in Belgium, in India, in America, everywhere. The most 
prominent object in Shrewsbury is the immense column erected 
in honor of Lord Hill, who fought all over Europe in the great 
wars against Napoleon, carried on for many bloody years — for 
what? 

One of the glories of Shrewsbury is its grammar school, which 
had 290 scholars three hundred years ago. Many men famous in 
England have been educated at this school, but the only one 
whose name is well known in America is, I regret to say, that 
of the infamous Judge Jeffries. It seems strange that such a 
bloody-minded beast could ever have been a school-boy with a 
soft heart in such a quaint, quiet old town. 

My Sheffield friend and I came at last to the castle. It is now 
a private residence, and occupied by a family named Downward, 
though it is the property of the Duke of Cleveland, who seldom 



24 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

or never visits it. We wandered into the court-yard, now devoted 
to the greenest of grass and the brightest of flowers and clumps 
of trees and shrubbery, before we were aware that we were on 
private property. Apologizing to a lady in black whom we met, 
for the intrusion, we were about to withdraw, when she politely 
invited us to inspect the premises and enjoy the view from the 
tower, and gave, beside, much information about the town and 
vicinity. Standing on the tower we looked down upon the Severn, 
which runs at the base of the mount on which the castle is built. 
This was, then, the " gentle Severn with the sedgy bank," that 
Shakspeare speaks of; and so came back to memory the old lines, 
about the ashes of Wickliffe being cast into the Avon : 

"The Avon to the Severn runs, 
The Severn to the sea; 
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad, 
Wide as the waters be." 

Our walk was finished at noon, but in the evening I took a 
long stroll alone, going to "the Quarry," a famous place in Shrews- 
bury. It is not a quarry at all, but a piece of ground sloping to the 
Severn, and surrounded on three sides by double rows of immense 
lime trees, a tree resembling the American linn, but growing to a 
great height. The trees, many of them planted in 1719, form an 
archway of green over the path which the sun of noon can hardly 
penetrate. Then I wandered through the old streets, across the 
English bridge with its time-worn railing, to the old abbey with 
a statue, supposed to be that of Edward III, high up in front, fac- 
ing the sun and storm as it has done for many centuries. Then, 
back again across the bridge and down some stone steps to a long 
winding path beside the Severn, the evening promenade of the 
Shrewsbury folks, and so along, watching the shadows of the even- 
ing clouds in the placid waters till the day was done. 



WORCESTER. 



LEAVING Shrewsbury, on the Severn Valley road, for Wor- 
cester, one has along the way a pleasant view of the Welsh 
Mountains, which are rather great blue hills, reminding one some- 
what of the Blue Ridge in Virginia, as seen a long way off. The 
country grows rougher as you journey on, but nothing grand. So 
far, the open country I had seen in England reminded me of a 
reduced copy of something I had seen in America; as, for in- 
stance, on this road there is a precipitous town called Ironbridge, 
which makes one think of Mauch Chunk on a small scale. Not 
far from here I was pointed out the residence of a Mr. Whitmer, 
an ironmaster, whose estate extends for miles in every direction. 
His name was mentioned with more respect than I have noticed 
used with regard to many noblemen, and I am inclined to think 
that men like him, who are allied by birth to the middle, or even, 
as in the case of the elder Stephenson, to the lower classes, are the 
real leading men of England. 

The agriculture of this region was indifferent ; the hedges were 
untrimmed ; the fields were poor, and many of them were a per- 
fect blaze of poppies, very ornamental, but quite the reverse of 
useful. It reminded me of some old country in New England, 
where all the young men have gone West, and left the old men to 
knock about with a side-hill plow and a bush scythe. 

Worcester, where we arrived in due but not very fast time, is 
an ugly town, uglier even than Stratford -on -Avon, of which we 

(25) 



26 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

shall speak by-and-by, because it is larger. It is known best in 
history on account of Cromwell's fight there, the memory of which 
is perpetuated in the Guildhall by a cannon and several suits of 
armor, left by the king's forces when they retreated. 

Every old English town has its peculiarities and its sights, or 
some real or affected quality of its inhabitants. Thus, at Liver- 
pool they still relate with infinite glee the story of a coachman in 
the old coaching days, who described his load as "a gentleman 
from Liverpool, a man from Manchester, and a fellow from Bol- 
ton." Chester has, as I have said, three sights ; Shrewsbury has 
a dozen little "lions;" but Worcester has but two sights, and no 
more, to interest the traveler. These are, the cathedral and the 
Eoyal Porcelain Works. 

The cathedral has been restored, and is a fine building, with 
a modern look. They say these restorations are necessary to pre- 
serve antique buildings, and yet astonishing stories are told of the 
solidity of old English structures. Eev. Moncure D. Conway 
lives in Hammersmith, London, in a dwelling called Hamlet 
House, which is over one hundred and fifty years old, and was 
once the residence of Liston, the famous English actor ; yet Mrs. 
Conway assured me that it did not need near the repairs of a mod- 
ern London residence. They built well in the old time. But to 
return to Worcester and its cathedral. Chester Cathedral is re- 
markably destitute of monuments, but Worcester is full of them. 
One erected to the memory of Lady Charlotte Digby ( the work of 
Chantrey), is singularly beautiful — worthy of Powers, who, in my 
perhaps not very valuable American opinion, was the greatest 
sculptor since Phidias. It represents a partially-reclining female 
figure, with her hands clasped and her eyes uplifted. The neck, 



WORCESTER. 27 

arms and feet are bare, and the latter are the most marvelous 
things I ever saw in marble. In this church is also buried the 
wife of Izaak Walton, and there was a "touch of nature" in the 
inscription in the words introduced in parenthesis, "Alas! that she 
is dead." There are an abundance of monuments of ancient 
knights and ladies, lying side by side on their tombs, their poor 
stone hands clasped. The verger said the way in which a knight's 
legs were crossed indicated the number of holy wars in which he 
had been engaged; whereupon the idle and irrelevant reflection 
occurred to me that an American editor lying on his tomb with 
his legs crossed for each of his fights would be a fearfully twisted 
object. 

The gratuity nuisance, at which every American traveler has 
waxed wrathful, exists in a particularly aggravated form at Wor- 
cester Cathedral. Notices are everywhere posted, informing vis- 
itors that the vergers are paid by the dean and chapter, and that 
no gratuities are to be given them, but you are admonished that 
you must give "at least sixpence" to the poor, and a verger stands 
over you to see that you do it. This is too mean ; but the Houses 
of Parliament are almost the only "show places" in England 
where some such sixpenny dodge is not resorted to. 

Speaking of cathedrals, they are grand structures; they are 
history in stone; and I can sympathize with the feeling that leads 
to their preservation and restoration — but they are unfit for Prot- 
estant places of worship. As museums, they are a success ; as 
churches, they are not. They were built for another age and an- 
other faith. The ancient monkish carvings, for instance, would 
by no means be introduced even into a modern Catholic church. 
At Chester, the celibate artist has depicted the sorrows of matri- 



28 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

mony — we have a woman beating her husband with a broom, etc. ; 
but at Worcester, the carved work is literally "red hot." All the 
steps in the fate of the wooden impenitent are portrayed. Here 
he is condemned ; here devils are tying sinners in convenient 
bundles to burn ; here one unusually hard case is being treated to 
a roast by himself; here one unlucky gentleman is boiling away 
in a kettle of oil; and the procession of wooden horrors is closed 
with the figure of a bishop, who, with uplifted finger, seems to be 
saying to those who would get out for a drink of water or a breath 
of fresh air, "No you don't." 

I attended two choral services in cathedrals — one at Chester 
and another at Worcester ; and notwithstanding the fine music, 
scarcely anybody was present. Dean Stanley attracts a large con- 
gregation on Sunday at Westminster Abbey, for he is one of the 
greatest men in the Church of England; but the result is, that 
with one of those great pillars between you and the preacher, you 
cannot hear what he says. The humblest "meeting-house" in 
America is preferable as a preaching -place to the proudest 
cathedral. 

The cathedral at Worcester does not prevent the Dissenters 
from being the strongest. Such names as Milton street and Crom- 
well street indicate the prevalence of the Eoundhead blood. I 
noticed several temperance inns, and even a Temperance street; 
and somehow I have associated teetotalism in England with lib- 
eralism in politics and dissent in religion, while it seems as if the 
Conservative party and the Establishment "took its tod." How- 
ever, total abstinence in England is getting along very slowly, in 
church or state. At the rate of present progress, I should judge 
that about twenty thousand years would be required for the Inde- 



WORCESTER. 29 

pendent Order of Good Templars to acquire a good_^and sufficient 
foothold. 

The Royal Porcelain Works are well worth a visit. The works 
have been established about one hundred and fifty years, and 
claim to make the finest goods in England. The curious in 
pottery may have noticed the Worcester work at our Centen- 
nial Exhibition. The processes by which what look like white 
rocks and white sand are converted into the most delicate por- 
celain wares, are very interesting. Nearly everything is done 
by hand; and here, as in AmericR, it has been found that in 
certain kinds of burnishing- work, women can alone be employed. 
Here is one "field" where woman is preeminent. Agates are 
used in burnishing, and I suggested Colorado as a good field 
to supply the large amount of the stone required. There are six 
hundred persons employed in the works — all save two of them 
English. As a curious instance of the biblical truth, that there 
is "nothing new under the sun," I was told that the favorite 
ware now was of the same pattern as a set made for King George 
III. If you go to Worcester, do not fail to visit the porcelain 
works. You can get a pair of blue vases there for the sum of 
one thousand guineas a pair. 

At Worcester, it was my disgusting fortune to meet the first 
ill-mannered Englishman. It was a youth with a scorbutic coun- 
tenance, who sold tickets at the Great Western station. This 
person not only refused to change a Bank of England note, but 
genteelly intimated that I was a counterfeiter, or a burglar, or a 
horse-thief for having such a note in my possession. As it was 
train-time when I received this flattering testimonial to my char- 



30 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

acter, and there was no chance to get the note changed elsewhere, 
I was obliged to remain several hours longer in Worcester. 

I wandered into the Guildhall, where a court was in session. 
It was a small affair, and the Justices had no wigs; but as it is 
impossible to deal out justice in England without something un- 
usual on your head, all the Justices had their hats on. It was 
some case in which a "workus" was mixed up; and it struck me 
that their worships looked uncommonly like the beadle in Oliver 
Twist. 

In accordance with the American custom, I went into a news- 
paper office. The editor, I was sorry to learn, was dead. I trust 
his life was insured, as otherwise his family were undoubtedly left 
destitute. The business manager, a fat man with a gracious way, 
who had worked on a London paper, was very civil. I went into 
the composing room with him. It looked just as such an institu- 
tion does in America. The foreman told me that the "tramping 
jour." was a regular British institution; so my friend, and every- 
body's friend, Mr. Peter Bartlett Lee, will find himself at home 
should he choose to visit the shores of old Albion. I was shown 
an old hand-press, and was astonished to see the American eagle 
roosting thereon. "Hello, old bird," thought I; "what are you 
doing here?" The matter was explained when I saw that it was 
an old "Columbian" press, the "image and superscription" of 
which may be seen in any history of typography. However, this 
was not all : I found a new American jobber in operation in the 
office. 

Although I had had a sample of "Worcestershire sauce" from 
the cub at the railroad station, I looked about for the manufactory 



WORCESTER. 31 

of Lea & Perrin's "justly celebrated" article. The manufactory 
was not as extensive as I expected ; and I fear that what is sauce 
for Worcester is not sauce for America. 

At 4 o'clock p. m. I wended my way to the station, where my 
imperial friend was graciously pleased to accept a sum in copper 
and silver in exchange for a ticket to Stratford-on-Avon — of 
which I may use the entirely original and impromptu expres- 
sion, "more anon." 



STRATFORD - ON -AVON. 



w 



ILLIAM SHAKSPEAKE, by merely being born, con- 
ferred unmeasured honor on a very stupid, "stale, flat 
and unprofitable" town — a town which it is a duty to visit and a 
pleasure to leave; a town where the old houses are not picturesque, 
and the new ones are not handsome. 

The Stratford of Shakspeare's time was probably a cozy hamlet, 
as comfortable as any English village could be in the "good old 
time." It was nearer the Avon (which, by the way, is pronounced 
A-von by those born on its banks), and there were trees and gar- 
dens where there are now broad, flat yellow streets, lined with 
ugly houses. 

I reached Stratford a few hours "by sun," and looked about 
for something that would bring back the old time. I found, in- 
stead, the programme of a "praise meeting" such as my friend 
the Rev. Mr. Blakesley holds at his church — though I venture to 
say the birthplace of the "bard of Avon" does not furnish as 
good music as Topeka; and also a handbill announcing that the 
Methodists were going to hold a camp meeting soon. Here was 
certainly one American institution at the start. While the relig- 
ious exercises of the neighborhood savored of the modern, it 
must be confessed that the amusements had a more ancient flavor. 
For instance, it was announced that one of the sports at an ap- 
proaching festival would be "walking across the river on a 

(32) 



STRA TFORD - ON- A VON. 33 

greased pole for a pig." This would have pleased Falstaff, and 
doubtless that immoral old knight laughed at the same perform- 
ance in his time. 

It was sunset, or rather the long English twilight had com- 
menced, when I wended my way to the church of the Holy Trinity, 
where Shakspeare is buried. The church stands in the corner of 
the town, and is shut in by garden walls and trees. It does not 
seem a part of the modern town. A sound of music issued from 
the gray old church, and a boy told me it was doubtful if I could 
gain admission, as "choir meeting" was in progress. However, 
yonder was the house of Mr. Butcher, the parish clerk, and I 
might see him about it. Mr. Butcher came out of his respectable 
mansion as I approached it. He was a man of decent and vener- 
able aspect, with a Eoman nose large enough for two average Ro- 
mans. He was somewhat round-shouldered, and had a rather sad 
and wearied look. I felt that he thought this was a " mad world, my 
masters," when people come across the ocean to ask him hundreds 
of questions about a man who has been dead since 1616. He did 
his duty, though, and we entered the church in which the shadows 
had commenced to gather. The choir leader had his forces mar- 
shalled, and was giving his orders in a loud and peremptory man- 
ner. We passed through the choir and stood at the railing of the 
chancel within which lies buried Shakspeare. The bust in the 
niche in the wall above the chancel, is familiar to everyone from 
engravings. It is colored, to make it appear life-like, I presume. 
I trust it is a bad likeness; I hope that the artist who carved it 
was a very bad one, for it would be a genuine affliction to believe 
that Shakspeare looked like that. It is the beefy countenance of 
a good natured- person who might possibly pay for a Falstaff's 



34 A KANSAN ABROAD. * 

drinks for the sake of laughing at his talk, but who in no possible 
juncture of circumstances could be supposed to take an active 
part in the conversation. 

Very good people are sometimes troubled with doubts about 
the doctrine of the Trinity, and ever since I first read of Miss 
Bacon's theory, that Shakspeare did not write Shakspeare's plays, 
but that he was merely a mask for Lord Bacon — intellectually 
the greatest Englishman of his time — I have had spasms of infi- 
delity about the "divine William." As I looked at his graven 
image in Stratford church, and read the mysterious curse which 
forbids any meddling with his bones, all my doubts returned. 
How was it possible, thought I, that a drunken, dissolute youth, 
educated in this out-of-the-way place, ever acquired the informa- 
tion displayed in a long series of historical plays? How did 
anybody, born in Stratford- on- A von, ever come to write any- 
thing? I was glad to go out of the church; and as I went I 
gazed again on the serious countenance of Mr. Butcher, and 
wondered if he did not have his doubts, and if he did not have 
to struggle with himself to keep from breaking out sometimes 
before a party of American visitors, and telling them that they 
were humbugged ; that there never was any Shakspeare ; that he 
never was born — never died, and never wrote any plays. If Mr. 
Butcher had any doubts, he kept them locked in his bosom by a 
"combination" known only to himself. But he was not a Shak- 
spearean enthusiast; for as we walked down the aisle, he called my 
attention to some new stained-glass windows, and to the modern 
arrangements for heating the church with hot-water pipes, for, 
he remarked, it was a cold place in the winter-time; and so he 
said "good night," and left me in the churchyard. 



STB A TFORD - ON- A VON. 35 

It was a quiet place. The Avon flows at the foot of the stone 
wall which forms one side of the churchyard. On the other side 
of the narrow stream, which winds among sedgy islands, was a 
broad, green meadow, but a few inches above the level of the 
stream; and beyond that was a green embankment, and then a 
line of scattered oak trees, and beyond them the evening sky. 
Young people were walking arm-in-arm in the meadow, and some 
boys were fishing from the stone wall, and some fresh-faced, hoy- 
denish young girls were running and romping about among the 
gravestones. It was possible here to believe in Shakspeare. It was 
possible to suppose that he might have walked beside this stream, 
and that his brilliant fancy might have here conjured up such 
bits of melody as "Where the bee sucks," and "Come unto these 
yellow sands." And yet, if history be true, all this was fancy. 
The immortal plays were written in London, the London of nearly 
three hundred years ago, a city of dirty, narrow streets and unsa- 
vory smells. The chances are that "All the world's a stage" was 
thought out, not under the blue sky at Stratford, but at the wings 
and amid the smoke of the candles that lit the stage of the Globe 
Theater, in London. Poets have lived in most unpoetical places, 
and Shakspeare was not an exception. Stratford had nothing to 
do with his genius. In the little town he was born, and passed a 
not very reputable youth. He sought real life in London, and 
passed his greatest days there, and retired at last with a not un- 
common feeling of attachment to one's birthplace, to Stratford, to 
die and be buried. His. family name is not an uncommon one. 
There is a Shakspeare in the town now, who keeps a little shop ; 
there is, or was not many years ago, a Captain Shakspeare in the 
British army, who, Mr. Butcher told me, had visited Stratford; 



36 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

but no Shakspeare traces his descent from the one great man of 
the name, and really but little is known of him, whose epitaph 
might read: "He furnished the world with quotations." 

It was quite dark when I got back to the inn. Bardolph, Pistol 
and the rest kept up an awful noise in a tap-room near, singing 
convivial songs, and occasionally I heard a female voice above 
the din, which I suppose was that of Dame Quickly ; and to make 
the illusion yet more perfect, I met Doll Tearsheet on the stairs 
the next morning very drunk indeed. 

On my way to the station, I stopped at the house where Shak- 
speare was born. It is a "timber -and -plaster" house, with a 
slightly-projecting upper story, such as are found all over Eng- 
land. One may see a row of them in Gray's Inn Road, London. 
I should judge this style of house was the ancestor of the "con- 
crete" house — a variety of architecture unfortunately prevalent 
in Kansas. The Shakspeare house is kept in excellent repair, 
and the museum it contains is really interesting. I noticed the 
trace of America all around. Washington Irving' s lines, "written 
on the spot," are framed and hung up in a conspicuous place. 
The fame of that excellent man and pioneer of American litera- 
ture appears to be very well cared for in England. I saw among 
the pictures a photograph of the "death mask" of Shakspeare, 
found in Germany, but did not find in the library the copy of 
"Scribner" containing a very interesting paper on the mask and 
other portraits of Shakspeare. 

It was very pleasant to see so many evidences of American 
appreciation in this little interior town of England; it recalled 
one of the singular facts of history. Four years after Shakspeare 
died, the company of Puritans landed at Plymouth. In that 



STRA TFORD - ON- A VON 37 

company there was not a man or woman, I venture to say, who 
did not regard Shakspeare as "a maker of profane stage plays," 
and a son of perdition; and I am equally confident that Shak- 
speare, in his day, regarded the Puritans as a set of sour-faced 
bigots, unworthy a place on the earth they darkened with their 
gloomy presence. Yet in that new nation founded by these con- 
temners of the vanities of the stage, the name of Shakspeare is 
held in the greatest reverence. 

"New Place," the site of the house where Shakspeare died, I 
did not care to visit. We are told that the property fell into the 
hands of a clergyman, who was bored by visitors, and who, more 
anxious to have a comfortable place to die in himself, than to 
preserve an old house, tore it down. The place is a sort of beer 
garden now, I believe. 

Further about Stratford, this deponent saith not. Were it ten 
times as ugly, and, in itself, uninteresting as it is, it would always 
be visited. Men cannot resist, after all the vanished years, the 
spell of that mysterious genius which came like a meteor from 
out the darkness; which passed over the earth like "the wind, 
"but whence it cometh and whither it goeth, ye cannot tell." 



WARWICK AND ITS CASTLE. 



AMOKNING ride from Stratford-on-Avon to Warwick is 
not a particularly inspiriting operation, as the road leads 
through an exclusively agricultural country. 

Warwickshire, in its surface, is not unlike Dickinson and other 
counties of Kansas in that region, but trees are very plentiful; 
in fact, the country was, centuries ago, a forest. The trees some- 
times cover the hillsides in groves, but oftener stand in the 
hedge-rows which cut the country up into small fields. The haw- 
thorn, by-the-way, is a much handsomer hedge-plant than the 
Osage orange. The grain looked short; and they were cutting 
the grass with little one-horse mowers, and the swaths looked 
thin on the ground. I saw not a stalk of Indian corn ; nor did I 
see an ear of it in England, except those exhibited in the British 
Museum as curiosities. There were many fields of turnips, and 
others of some plants that looked like milk -weed, but which, I 
learned afterward, were horse beans. Where the land had been 
rlcently plowed, it looked yellow and poor. It was evident 
that the high cultivation, associated in our minds with modern 
English farming, had not been tried in Warwickshire; or if so, 
it had done but little good. Creeping around in these fields were 
men in dingy white clothes, hoeing turnips and the like. The 
American black slave was not, in his day, remarkable for the 
celerity and suddenness of his movements, but he was a miracle 
of activity compared with these Warwickshire serfs, who belong 

(38) 



WARWICK AND ITS CASTLE. 39 

to the constituency of Mr. Joseph Arch. In the early part of the 
century, it was reported that every eighth person in Warwickshire 
was a pauper. If agriculture is the only resource of the county, 
the proportion ought to constantly increase. 

In this region I saw for the first time numerous thatched cot- 
tages. They look very romantic in pictures, and that is a very 
pretty line about "The swallow twittering in the straw-built shed," 
but practically and prosaically, a thatched roof is a great nuisance, 
in perpetual danger of fire, and a harbor for uncounted rats. A 
farm laborer's thatched cottage in England comes next to a Kan- 
sag dug-out, which I have always maintained was the meanest 
human habitation. The farm houses proper were substantial 
structures, and the outbuildings usually formed quite a village. 

In time, under a dim gray sky, we arrived at the mossy old 
town of Warwick. The gentle reader will pause to be told here 
that this word is pronounced Warrick ; in fact, the phonetic Indi- 
anians once having occasion to name a county after an army offi- 
cer named Warwick, spelled the name as it was pronounced, and 
so it remains even unto this day. 

Other old towns that I had seen in England looked as if they 
had changed somewhat in the last thousand years or so, but not 
so Warwick. As soon as the smart railroad station was out of 
. sight, and the shady winding street shut one in, it was easy to im- 
agine that Warwick town was still a dependency on the castle, and 
that the warder still kept his watch on the castle walls. I re- 
marked the image carved in stone of a very venerable-looking 
goat, standing on his hind legs on top of an ivy-covered gate-post, 
and was speculating as to the character of the old house, in front 
of which this goat seemed to be a mute sentry, and whether the 



40 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

occupant was my Lord Neville, or, perhaps, Beauchamp, when I 
saw the very common-place notice, "Boarding," in the window. 
It was 1877, after all. 

The castle is the great feature of Warwick. It is one of the 
very few edifices of the kind in England, still kept up and occu- 
pied as residences. 

The plan of these old castles appears to have been substantially 
the same. Elevated ground was selected — at Warwick, a cliff 
high above the Avon. There the walls and towers were built 
about an inclosure — the court-yard. At first, the structure might 
be limited and rude, but successive occupants added towers and 
battlements, till in time, as at Warwick, an immense collection of 
buildings was the result*. A village grew up about the castle, and 
in these latter days, the village, grown to a city, usually exists 
still, while the castle is a mouldering ruin ; but at Warwick both 
castle and village are in "full force and effect." The entrance to 
Warwick castle is through a portion of the park, and the road at 
one place goes through a cutting in the rock, which is so over- 
hung with trees that it is twilight there at noonday. You emerge 
into the midst of shrubbery and flowers, and, crossing the moat, 
which is now dry and beautifully sodded, you enter the court- 
yard, and the venerable walls of Warwick castle are about you. 

A guide, for a shilling, will tell you in which century each 
tower was constructed, but I forget what the guide said. I know 
that there was a castle here when the robber William, known as 
the Conqueror, took possession of the country. The Saxon owner 
had sided with the Normans, or had remained neutral, and hoped 
to retain possession, but was kicked out in due time, and the prop- 
erty given to a gentleman named, I think, Newburgh. Then the 



WARWICK AND ITS CASTLE. 41 

pleasant lords who occupied the castle, raided other lords, and 
they returned the compliment by storming the castle and burning 
it ; and then new towers and walls were constructed — and so the 
castle grew to be the wonder it is. The towers, externally, seem 
well preserved ; but when you climb the stone stairs, you see that 
the steps have been worn thin by the feet of successive genera- 
tions. The old guard-rooms in the tower are curious places, the 
stone floors fairly hollowed by the wear of centuries. In these 
rooms, the mail-clad warriors tramped about and looked out of 
the narrow windows, and longed for a chance to get down and 
out, and murder and plunder somebody. It is easy to be super- 
stitious in these old places, and one gets to speculating who the 
present lord of the castle may be, and thinks that he must be a 
descendant of the haughty barons who domineered over these 
premises and the surrounding region ; and who flung down their 
gauntlets at the feet of kings, and made such remarks as, "Lord 
Angus, thou hast lied!" and that he must inherit the fierce fea- 
tures of his warlike ancestry ; but, in the case of Warwick castle, 
this is the purest romance. The lord of the castle, and the ruler 
of this "battled wall and donjon keep," is, or would be in Amer- 
ica, Mr. George Guy Greville, a mild-mannered old gentleman of 
sixty or thereabouts, who probably wears a tweed suit and an um- 
brella and a silk hat ; who sits on a red cushion in the House of 
Lords and seldom says anything, and who resides in a modern 
house in London, instead of holding "high wassail" in his ban- 
queting hall at Warwick, or storming about, shouting, "What, 
warder, ho ! let the portcullis fall." The present Earl of Warwick 
is not in the least a relative of the Nevilles or the Beauchamps, 
the Warwicks of old. They are all dead, and the present earl is 



42 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

a descendant of a certain Sir Fulke Greville, who flourished not 
longer ago than Queen Elizabeth's time. These Grevilles do not 
appear to have been very distinguished as fighters, though Lord 
Brooke, one of the family, was killed at the siege of Lichfield, in 
the days of Cromwell. The present Countess of Warwick, I was 
told, comes of a military family, being a sister of that dashing and 
enterprising donkey, Lord Lucan, who ordered the Light Brigade 
to death and destruction, at Balaklava. 

As I have said, Warwick castle is one of the few old castles 
still occupied as a residence. Although over thirty rooms were 
destroyed by fire a few years ago, a considerable portion of the 
residence part remained untouched ; and in turn we may say, that 
the occupied portion of the castle comprises but a small portion 
of the castle itself. Warwick castle is, then, partly a residence, 
partly a picture gallery, and partly a carefully-preserved ruin. 

The state rooms are open to the public on the payment, of 
course, of one shilling. If heaven were under English manage- 
ment, an entrance fee of one shilling — neither more nor less — 
would be demanded. A noble suite of rooms, filled with costly 
and beautiful objects, is traversed by the visitor. At Warwick 
I first saw the original portrait of Charles I, by Van Dyke : as I 
have seen this original several times since, I think Van Dyke 
must have painted several pictures at once. It is this portrait, 
Macaulay thinks, that makes people believe that Charles was a 
"martyr." His Majesty struck me as having a long nose, and a 
mean expression of countenance. Holbein's picture of Henry 
VIII is also at Warwick. No engraving does this picture justice. 
It must have been a most faithful portrait, for a more beastly 
countenance cannot well be imagined. The finest picture, in my 



WARWICK AND ITS CASTLE. 43 

opinion, in the collection, is a portrait of a Spanish embassador, 
by Velasquez. I hope such of my friends as may hereafter visit 
Warwick will not fail to look at it. I ought not to omit to men- 
tion, also, Sir Joshua Reynolds's famous picture of Mrs. Siddons. 
The greatest curiosity of the place is the suite of rooms devoted 
to a display of ancient weapons and armor. These rooms are hol- 
lowed out in the enormous thickness of the old castle walls, which 
after, the process are still heavier than the walls of our strongest 
houses. 

In going to Warwick, I was moved in a great degree by a de- 
sire to visit the Earl of Leicester's hospital, so pleasantly described 
by Hawthorne, a description which will bear reading many times. 
This asylum was founded by that Robert Dudley, Earl of Leices- 
ter, the favorite of the " Virgin Queen," Elizabeth, for whose vir- 
ginity we are indebted for the name of Virginia. Robert had his 
faults — who has not? He poisoned one wife, dishonored another 
before he married her, and disowned a third ; but his monument 
in the church at Warwick bears the usual inscription : "A kind 
husband, an affectionate father." However, to decidly alter Shak- 
speare, the good that bad men do lives after them. The little boys 
"of Warwick go to a school established by a bequest of murdering 
old Henry VIII, and the provisions respecting the Earl of Leices- 
ter's "bounty" are still carried out. He provided that twelve old 
soldiers, to be selected from four parishes named, should be forever 
sheltered at this hospital. The master at the hospital must be a 
clergyman. Failing in finding soldiers, marines are eligible to 
the bounty. The buildings are quaint old structures, of the tim- 
ber-and-plaster order of architecture, like Shakspeare's birthplace 
at Stratford. Each soldier has a little room of his own. The 
wives of the old men are allowed to remain here also, and I saw 



44 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

red-faced old women who had followed the marchings of the Brit- 
ish army for twenty-five years. There is a great hall, said once 
to have been a splendid place, and in one end of the hall is this : 
"Memorandum that King James the First was right nobly enter- 
tained at a supper in this hall by the Honorable Sir Fulke Gre- 
ville, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and one of His Majesty's Most 
Honorable Privy Council, upon the Fourth Day of September, 
Anno Domini, 1617. God save the King." Those who would 
know how His Majesty munched, and romped, and joked, and 
slobbered on that occasion, should read the "Fortunes of Nigel." 
When I saw this sacred place it was partly filled with washtubs. 

My guide was an old soldier with a fiery countenance, a red 
wart on one eyelid, and a breath which I judge had been through 
several wars and had assisted at the storming of several distil- 
leries. He told me all about the establishment, and showed the 
badge which each veteran must wear — the bear and ragged staff. 
He said that but one of the badges had ever been lost, although 
generations of old soldiers — the wearers thereof — have gone to 
the "eternal camping-ground." He exhibited a piece of embroi- 
dery, by the unfortunate Amy Robsart, and said that the hand- 
some frame was purchased by an American gentleman, Mr. Charles 
O' Conor, of New York. I was very anxious to see the master of 
the hospital, Rev. Mr. Harris, and get from him some remi- 
niscences of Hawthorne's visit, but was unable to find him "at 
home." 

I was curious to know how the gratuity business was to be man- 
aged. It was very neatly done. My old military friend assured 
me that he and his brethren wanted nothing; but that the late 
Earl of Leicester had neglected to make any provision for the 
widows of old soldiers ; that a fund was now being raised for that 



WARWICK AND ITS CASTLE. 45 

purpose ; and if I would like to contribute a little something, etc. 
I strongly suspect that my shilling went to keep up the fine old 
military breath of my guide ; and if so, it is well. Long may it 
be before he takes that jolly red nose out of a beer mug for the 
last time, and long may the good bounty of the wicked Earl be 
well dispensed, and the " broken soldier kindly bade to stay." 

The sun scarcely shone while I was at Warwick, and the faint 
gray sky seemed to harmonize with the gray walls of the hoary 
castle; the quiet streets of the faded, aged town; the dim aisles of 
old St. Mary's ; the brown flood of the gliding Avon. The town 
crier, whom I met in a cocked hat and a long flaming red coat, 
carrying his noisy bell, was quite out of character. Methought 
he was far too gay for such a venerable and time-worn place, 
where there should be nothing vivid in color, or more harsh in 
sound than the mill-wheel's drowsy hum and the decorous singing 
of staid and ancient birds. 

The train bore me away in the early afternoon, to Leamington ; 
to Banbury, famous in the nursery rhyme ; to Oxford, with its great 
university; and so at last I saw shining in the distance, like the 
Delectable Mountains in Bunyan's dream, the towers, the skirting 
battlements, the great walls, white and fair, of Windsor castle. 
Then, as one beholds at sea the crest of wave rising behind wave, 
miles away to where the sky comes down, so I saw lines on lines 
of roofs, red and black, one behind another, acres on acres of them, 
to the right, to the left, to the front ; and over all hung a blue 
smoke like that which rolls away from a battle-field when the day 
is won and lost. 

"Is that London?" said I to the man opposite. 

"A part of it," said he. 



SOMETHING ABOUT LONDON 



THEEE are several villages of considerable importance in 
England, such as Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, 
but there is but one town, and that is London. To go to "town," 
is to go to London ; and, no matter from what point of the com- 
pass you start, it is always "up" to London. 

People confuse and overwhelm themselves in trying to take 
in the idea of London as a single city. The "City" proper, as 
everybody is supposed to know, is a small spot in London com- 
prising between three and four hundred acres; and from that 
center London has spread like a prairie fire, until it is simply a 
county covered with houses. I have never heard a man say how 
many people there are in London; the usual expression is, "from 
three and a half to four millions" — a few hundred thousand, 
more or less, make but little difference. This immense popu- 
lated region that we call London, is, however, easily traversed; 
and it is no more difficult for a visitor to find any locality in Lon- 
don, than it is for a Western man to find the "n.e.^ of the n. w.£ 
of 6, 11, 15." There are many streets of the same name in Lon- 
don, and it is somewhat important that you should know whether 
you want to go to Queen street, Hackney, or Queen street, Ken- 
sington, as they are some miles apart; but if you do know this 
much, you can hardly go wrong, inasmuch as the city is also di- 
vided into parts designated by initials, as W., west; W. C, west 
central, and so on. 

(46) 



. SOMETHING ABOUT LONDON. 47 

The immense populated country, then, that we call London, is 
geographically divided in a simple manner ; is admirably paved, 
well lighted at night, and guarded by an army of perfectly-drilled, 
neatly-uniformed, quiet, civil, intelligent police — the stranger's 
best friends. 

The growth of London in all directions, is shown by names 
which have now lost their significance. There are "fields" where 
there are no fields. Bunhill Fields, the Dissenters' cemetery, 
where Bunyan is buried, is miles from anything resembling a 
field ; so are the churches of St. Martin-in-the-fields, and St. Giles- 
in-the-fields. These names once given, will, probably, always re- 
main ; for in England things change, but names seldom or never. 

London is really a modern city, and still a growing one. It is 
true that a city called London has existed for very many centu- 
ries, still but few traces of that old city remain. Nearly every- 
thing one sees in London dates back not over three hundred 
years. Westminster Abbey and the Tower are exceptions ; but 
the Houses of Parliament are new; St. Paul's is not a very an- 
cient edifice ; and in fact, an American is very apt to look with 
great reverence on certain things in London which after all are 
not much older than Boston. I believe the oldest equestrian 
statue in London is one of Charles I, in whose days America had 
already become a promising youth. The names of localities, as 
they existed before modern London came into being, still remain. 
Why a street should be called Old Jewry in a city where a Eoths- 
child has been knighted, and in a country ruled by the son of an 
Israelite, and himself called Disraeli, is a conundrum that must 
be left to Dundreary. In the old time there was a thoroughfare 
called Thieving Lane, near the palace of Westminster. If an 



48 A XANSAN ABROAD. 

officer, in taking a thief through this locality, took him out of 
certain bounds, the thief went free. Thieving Lane no longer ex- 
ists, but Broad Sanctuary does, and may be seen by any visitor to 
St. James Park. 

Old London, now outgrown and overgrown, was a wretched 
place, unpaved and unlighted, infested at night by robbers and 
ruffians of all sorts. In fact, it is not so long ago that highway- 
men stopped travelers in what is now London. Messrs. Turpin 
.and others, who ended their days at "Xewgit," did a flourishing 
business in its immediate neighborhood. 

This huge monster of London must have breathing -places; 
and they exist in the great parks in the west, and in the number- 
less squares and crescents all over town. These little squares are 
not, strictly speaking, public property, but are used by the people 
living around them : it is a penal offense to unlock them without 
a key issued by authority. These squares are, however, a thing 
of beauty and a joy forever — to those who have keys. 

To get about London you have the choice between the under- 
ground railway, usually called the "Metropolitan;" several "day- 
light" railways; the street railroads, called "tramways," and very 
slowly coming into favor ; the omnibuses ; and a countless number 
of vehicles, including that English institution, the "Hansom," in 
which the driver rides behind the top in a trap that resembles 
one of Faries' smoke-stacks. The London cabman, once a mir- 
acle of extortion and impudence, is now pretty well subjugated ; a 
table of distances is posted at all the cab stands, and there is no 
absolute necessity for being bullied or cheated. Of course, a small 
gratuity is allowable, and the cabman usually grins when you 
alight, and observes that he "wouldn't mind 'avin' a glahss o' 



SOMETHING ABOUT LONDON. 49 

beer." The quickest way to travel is the " underground," but you 
must stand the gas and smoke. In the matter of cheapness, the 
cars and 'buses rank about alike; the easiest and most stylish 
mode is to take a carriage; but the best style of traveling for a 
stranger is on top of an omnibus, if possible, with the driver. 
These drivers " know the country." I rode once with a red-faced 
old horse-pelter who was as original as Mr. Weller, the father of 
"Samivel." The "basic" theory of this old gent was, that we are 
creatures of circumstances, and are good or bad, "accordin'." 
All men, he reasoned, were possible " raskills," and as to women 
— but, I won't give his theory about them, for I don't believe it. 
An omnibus driver, as far as he drives, is worth a dozen guide- 
books. 

There is another great thoroughfare in London, which I have 
not mentioned : it is the Thames. To one who has seen the Mis- 
souri, the Mississippi, the Hudson, and several other American 
rivers I could name, it is rather fatiguing to hear an Englishman 
speaking of the Thames as "a noble river," and even as "an enor- 
mous stream." It is a very nice little river, is the Thames; but 
it looks very small at first sight, and the bridges across it, though 
very handsome as a rule, are nothing in the matter of engineering 
to the Mississippi river bridge at St. Louis, or, in fact, any of the 
great railroad bridges in America. I was disappointed in the 
Thames and its shores. I had formed my ideas of it from Dora's 
pictures, as published in Harper's Weekly some years ago. I im- 
agined it a swift stream, black as ink, crowded with boats jostling 
each other ; and that it was overshadowed by enormously high, 
black warehouses. Instead, on a trip to Greenwich and back, I 
saw a very cleanly, decent stream, not at all crowded with water 

D 



50 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

craft of any sort ; and instead of the black castles of Dora's pic- 
tures, there were rows of more or less rusty three-story buildings, 
like those one sees along the levee of a Mississippi river town. 
The Houses of Parliament, Somerset House, the Tower, and a 
few others, break the monotony; but London from the Thames 
looks commonplace, grimy and seedy. The river, however, forms 
a pleasant thoroughfare, and the ugly little steamers are always 
filled with people. Something is always happening on or about 
the river to attract a crowd on the bridges. One day a crowd lined 
the parapet of Westminster bridge. The "sight" appeared to be 
a company of New York merchants and their wives and daugh- 
ters on a boat, with a carpet and some gilded chairs forward, and 
another boat lying alongside on which was a band of music. It 
turned out that the first boat was the "royal" boat. I looked 
over the bridge, and pushed and pulled and hauled for a place 
with the rest — not, of course, because a republican American ever 
cares to look at queens and noblemen and such small deer, but 
merely to hear the music, you know. I don't suppose my Ameri- 
can readers will take any interest in the "outcome" of this affair, 
but I may remark, casually, that none of the royal family were on 
board the "royal" boat. 

According to Sir William Jones — I believe it is — it is not 
"high-raised battlements" and the like that "constitute a State," 
and so, after all, it is the people that make a city. London is a 
very populous city ; by which I mean that, in spite of the immense 
number of houses, there seem to be too many people for the resi- 
dences. It certainly appears in London as if half the people 
must walk about in the daytime while the other half slept. It is 
not only on a few streets, as in New York, that one sees the crowd, 



SOMETHING ABOUT LONDON. 51 

but on all the streets there is a moving swarm of people. There 
seems to be no "business center" in London — it is business every- 
where. Streets, miles from the Bank of England, are as crowded 
as Threadneedle or Lombard streets. The first exclamation of 
every visitor must be, "What swarms of people!" — and this by 
night as well as day. Work on a morning paper has made me, 
from force of habit, a discarder of the ancient maxim, "Early to 
bed and early to rise," but I never walked the streets of London 
late enough to find them empty. Ceaseless as the flood of a 
mighty river is the everlasting flow of human life in the streets 
of wondrous London. 

In this mass of humanity that lives and moves and has its be- 
ing in London, every variety of human condition may be found. 
The peer, and the wretched old woman who sells matches, jostle 
each other on the street. Sit on a chair in Hyde Park, and in an 
hour's time will roll by in carriages the representatives of wealth 
enough to buy Kansas — personal property, improved real estate 
and all. A five-minutes walk will bring you into the midst of 
wretchedness enough to chill the heart to look upon it, and vice 
enough to sicken the " oldest inhabitant" of Sodom. Between these 
are infinite grades. There are whole streets filled with people who 
seem to be poor, but not beggars; rough, but not wicked. These 
streets swarm with babies. I have looked down the vista of such 
a street, and it seemed as if one could not walk through the mid- 
dle without stepping on a baby. The street baby is usually in 
charge of a little girl, but little bigger than a baby herself, who 
carries her charge at all sorts of angles, as if it were a bag of old 
clothes. The lighting of the gas — an excellent article in London 
— is the signal for a general gathering in these streets of all the 



52 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

babies — enough in three or four blocks to furnish half a dozen 
baby shows. "On such a night," as Shakspeare remarks, I wan- 
dered into Ossulston street, a long, narrow thoroughfare branching 
out of Euston Koad, not far from the great St.Pancras depot, and 
there came that way an Italian gentleman with the national in- 
strument of his country, a hand-organ. That organ was as Geo. 
W. Martin would say, "a rattler." It was a Wild Bill, a "Rowdy 
Jo." of an organ — it played none of Artemus Ward's "slow 
moosic;" it took no note of "Hear me, Norma," but indulged 
only in the most exhilarating jigs, the most maddening reels. A 
company of stout, fresh-faced girls, whose social position it was 
hard to guess — only that they did not seem bad — subsidized the 
organ with half-pence and commenced to dance on the sidewalk. 
Round and round they went; up the center and "hands across." 
The hand-organ got excited and could hardly wait for the crank 
to come around ; the girls went faster, balancing with their hands 
upon their hips, and smiling from ear to ear; then the young 
nurses caught the contagion; the babies were gathered up any- 
where — by the arm, by the leg, by the neck, by the heels — and 
joined, perforce, in the dance. The street was full of music and 
motion ; the few dogs that the poverty of the neighborhood sup- 
ported in ease and idleness, assisted, by barking, in the amuse- 
ment ; it was a whirlpool of tangled hair, little bare legs, glittering 
eyes, white teeth, and rags. It was literally "fun alive"— hearty 
and innocent. It was one of the sights not described in the guide- 
books. And so we will stop here, and leave other sights, palaces 
and cathedrals, parks and pleasure-grounds, galleries and gardens, 
to another chapter. 



MORE ABOUT LONDON. 



It ~l TOW long did you stay in London?" said I, the other 

-J — L day, to my fellow - passenger on the Bothnia, Mr. 
McNally, of Eand, McNally & Co., of Chicago. " Two weeks," 
he replied, "which was a week too long." 

This little conversation was held in Paris, and it expresses the 
sentiment of nearly every American — after he has seen Paris. 
In what may be termed attractiveness, it is true that Paris main- 
tains an immense superiority over London. The difference is as 
great as that between a factory and a theater. If you wish to be 
delighted and amused, go to Paris; if you wish to be instructed, 
go to London. 

The "great sights" of London are nearly the same that they 
were fifty years ago. In my earliest youth, I heard of the Tower, 
of Westminster Abbey, of St. Paul's, of the Zoological Gardens ; 
and they are to-day, as they were in that remote period, the first 
things seen by every visitor. They have been so often described, 
that their appearance is familiar to every American — it only 
remains for me to give personal impressions. 

I came upon Westminster Abbey the first day I spent in Lon- 
don, quite unexpectedly, and I was powerfully impressed by the 
gloomy majesty of its exterior. Those two great towers seemed 
to represent art defying time. Nothing can be grander in its way 
than the great Abbey. It strikes you, it seems to me, in the same 

(53) 



54 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

way that the Yosemite does, or, to use a humbler simile, one of 
the great trees of California. 

I visited the Abbey three times ; once on Sunday, to hear Dean 
Stanley preach, in Avhich attempt I was unsuccessful. At a short 
distance from the preacher, but hidden behind one of the great 
clustered columns, it was impossible to catch a word or syllable. 
In each of these visits — I may as well confess the truth — I was 
disappointed. The interior of the Abbey, cut up into chapels, 
lacks the imposing dignity of the exterior; many of the monu- 
ments are in outrageous taste — many are defaced by time, and the 
appearance of everything is rusty and dusty. The great names 
that adorn the walls are the real glory of the Abbey. Take them 
away, and you might as well raze the building to the ground, 
for all the interest it would possess to a foreign visitor. 

As an American, I was desirous of seeing the monument of 
General Wolfe, who fell on the Heights of Abraham. I found a 
huge pile of allegorical figures, in the midst of which, Wolfe was 
depicted naked, in the same style that Nelson appears in a bronze 
horror at Liverpool. In my experience, I have never known a 
major general to go into action in that light array; and I can 
conceive no reason why any officer of any army or navy should 
be thus represented on a monument. Every American looks at 
the monument of the ill-fated Major Andre. It at first seems 
strange how fame preserves some comparatively humble names. 
Andre was a young man, only a major in rank, and died 
(justly, I think) as a spy; yet I have looked with emotion upon 
memorials of him in two continents — at Philadelphia and at 
London. But then, he was young, brave, handsome and unfor- 
tunate — a combination that is not so easily forgotten in this world. 



MORE ABOUT LONDON. 55 

Another monument that attracts trans- Atlantic attention, is that 
of Oliver Goldsmith, whose name has been made near and dear 
to us by the beautiful biography by Irving. His monument is 
disfigured by a Latin inscription, written, in spite of a protest, by 
that lumbering old pedant, Dr. Johnson. All that Latin is lost 
to the ordinary visitor, whose heart is stirred by four English 
words on another monument — "O, rare Ben Jonson." In the 
shadow of the Temple church, in the heart of London town, there 
is the real monument — a flat, low-lying slab, on which you may 
read the words, "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith." 

Most of the modern monuments in the Abbey are plain, but 
elegant in design. This description applies particularly to the 
monument to Sir John Franklin. 

A very touching custom in the Abbey, and elsewhere in Eng- 
land, is that of hanging over the resting-places of soldiers the 
faded flags of their regiments. In the dim light, unstirred by any 
passing breath of air, covered with gathering dust, faded and 
worn, these banners hang as if they, too, were dead ; as if life had 
departed from them, too, when it left the brave arms that could 
no longer defend them. 

I would advise the visitor oppressed by the memories evoked 
by the Abbey, to visit the Houses of Parliament, close at hand. 
This great edifice is modern, and harmonious and beautiful 
throughout. The House of Lords is the finest room I have ever 
seen, or expect to see. Ninety feet long, forty-five feet wide, and 
high in proportion, its symmetry is perfect. Unlike our halls of 
Congress, it is admirably ventilated, and the air is as pure and 
sweet as that of spring in the country. 

A curious compromise is seen in the paintings in one of the 



56 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

corridors. On one side are three pictures, portraying the valor 
of the Cavaliers ; on the other side are three scenes from the his- 
tory of the Puritans. One of these represents the departure of the 
Pilgrim Fathers for America — one of the very few artistic recog- 
nitions of the fact that the American Colonies were once "the 
brightest jewel of the crown." 

The Tower of London must of course be visited — but the 
place smells of innocent blood. It is a dreadful thing to look 
upon a block scored by the ax, where men were beheaded only a 
few years before our own Revolution. A certain brass plate sick- 
ened me more than all the wax horrors of Madame Tussaud's ex- 
hibition, for it marked the spot where stood the scaffold on which 
the slender necks of women were severed by the brutal ax ; where 
the Countess of Salisbury was dragged by her gray hair to the 
block — for so perished the last of the Plantagenets. The redeem- 
ing feature of the Tower is the beautiful arrangement of the mod- 
ern arms, and the devices formed of old bayonets, sabers, cutlasses 
and the like. One of these, representing the Prince of Wales's 
wedding cake, is a miracle of ingenuity. Speaking of cakes, the 
cake-baker to the royal family of England heats his royal oven 
at Chester. Then, of course, every one looks at the regalia room, 
where the royal crowns, scepters, swords, etc., are kept. Looking 
at the splendid crowns, one cannot help wondering at the poor 
quality of the heads they usually cover. 

I would advise every visitor to London to make much of the 
British Museum. It is in a gloomy building on a side street, but 
it is a constantly-growing wonder. I would advise reading peo- 
ple who expect to stop in London to obtain access to the library, 
which contains over one million volumes, any one of which will 



MORE ABOUT LONDON. 57 

be handed you inside of ten minutes from the application. The 
great circular room occupied by readers is a beautiful place, and 
all the arrangements for reading and writing are perfect. There 
are many thousands of volumes which you can take from the 
shelves yourself — and if others are needed, the attendants are 
uniformly polite and intelligent. A "liberal" education could 
be acquired in the British Museum alone. It is an art school, 
already. Many young persons may be seen copying the antique 
statues. The young ladies thus engaged were the prettiest I saw 
in England, and several of them were so handsome that they 
abundantly justified the necessity of the posted notices, "Visitors 
are requested not to crowd around the students." 

In Paris all public rooms and buildings are bright with fres- 
coes, mirrors and gilding, while the walls of the British Museum 
are as plain as those of a Quaker meeting-house. A long step in 
the direction of the ornamental has been made in the South Ken- 
sington Museum, which is really a beautiful place. I was most 
interested there in the manuscripts of Dickens's books. I thought 
I saw a growing change, running through the successive volumes. 
In "Oliver Twist," the handwriting was bold, full and free, while 
"A Tale of Two Cities" was blotted, and full of interlineations 
and changes. The man's mind was wearing out. 

The old "city" of London is the gloomiest place on earth. 
With the exception of St. Paul's, there is nothing that is not 
either positively, comparatively or superlatively ugly. The mon- 
ument "in honor" of the great fire, is situated in a sort of hole. 
The top is surrounded by a railing, put there to check a growing 
furor for jumping off (at which I do not wonder much), and the 
bottom is covered with inscriptions, stating that you can go up for 



58 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

three-pence, and that the provisions of the penal code will be en- 
forced against any persons beating carpets against the monument. 
While in this neighborhood, and out of respect for my honorable 
profession of journalist, I visited Billingsgate; but the place was 
a disappointment, and furnished me no new ideas. It is now a 
very commonplace fish market, where the language is up to the 
average of that of an editorial association, and a good deal more 
decent than that of an American newspaper fight. 

St. Paul's cannot be described. It has all the majesty — and 
more — of the old Catholic edifices, and is, withal, suited to Prot- 
estant services. The only fault with this building architecturally 
is the statues on the roof, which look like stone "hoodlums" who 
have climbed up there without permission. 

How dear to the youthful heart are the recollections of New- 
gate ! How precious the spot to the readers of Mr. Ainsworth's 
lurid works! It is but a step from St. Paul's — a powerful-looking 
building, with a sweet festoon of shackles, handcuffs, balls, chains 
and other jewelry over the main entrance. A few years ago, exe- 
cutions took place in the open space in front of the prison. A 
dense crowd filled this space, cursing and jostling all night long 
prior to a hanging. A spectator of one of the last public enter- 
tainments of this kind told me that the mob got to knocking off 
the hats of the police officers, and that the hats rolled over the 
heads of the mass like balls in a bowling alley. This is all over 
now, and "Newgit," like many another institution of the "good 
old times," is not " what it used to was." 

The transition is a sudden and almost irreverent one, but it is 
only a few steps from this dreadful old place to Bunhill Fields, 
where some of the best men and women who ever lived and died 



MORE ABOUT LONDON. 59 

are buried. This ground is a relic of the old times when the 
Dissenter was allowed to carry his dissent to the grave, if not be- 
yond it, and be buried separately from members of the Estab- 
lished Church. It opens directly on the street, and is so crowded 
with tombstones that you can hardly walk about. Here are the 
monuments of Dr. Watts and other hymn-writers ; here is buried 
the mother of the two great Wesleys; and "behold a greater than 
these," for here is buried John Bunyan, who, though, as he tells 
us, while he "walked through the wilderness of this world, 
lighted upon a certain place where was a den," made for us all, 
good and bad, a "dream" full of well-nigh unearthly brilliancy. 
Here, too, is buried Daniel Defoe, who, as the author of Kobin- 
son Crusoe, has sent more boys to sea than all the shipping 
offices ; a man who was rewarded for his services to mankind by 
mutilation and the pillory, and of whom the great Mr. Alexander 
Pope was not too much of a gentleman to write, "Earless on 
high sat unabashed Defoe." Of this old burial-ground, I ven- 
ture to say that there is more scripture and hymn-book in Bun- 
hill Fields than in all the other London cemeteries put together. 
But one sees here no military or naval monuments, yet those 
sleep here who have fought and have won. The inscription tells 
us of one who, though living in a humble sphere, was yet a 
worthy champion of honest government, and that he did not die 
until he had seen his fondest hopes realized in the passage of the 
Eeform Bill. Of victors there are many, being those, as the 
gravestones tell us, who " achieved a signal triumph over death." 

It is out-of-doors that the English display the finest artistic 
qualities. The parks and pleasure-grounds are their finest pic- 
tures, for they are wrought in the soil, which the Englishman 



60 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

loves. St. James Park, Green Park, Hyde and Eegents Parks, are 
all near together, and all are lovely places. The scrubby trees 
of the Champs Elysees do not compare with the noble oaks and 
chestnuts in the great London pleasure-grounds. In fact, nothing 
can be mentioned in comparison with them except the Central 
Park of New York, which is unquestionably the finest park in 
the world. 

The attraction of Hyde Park is the fashionable drive, which 
retains — because it happened once to get it — the detestable name 
of Eotten Row. In Rotten Row you may see the aristocracy in 
full feather in gorgeous equipages, and attended by the most im- 
posing flunkeys. The two things which most impressed, me, were 
first, the exceeding personal ugliness of the "hupper classes," and 
second, the legs of the footmen. I may say under the first head, 
that in my opinion the countesses and duchesses of England, in 
the matter of beauty, cannot approach the barmaids and the 
waitresses at the railroad stations. The aristocratic female in 
England has a tendency either to grow thin — in which case her 
countenance assumes all the angles of a gun-lock — or she gets 
stout and red in the face, and becomes a burden. I saw in the 
Row one day a lady clad in silks, who actually seemed a load for 
a pair of horses. The English gentleman is generally fine look- 
ing. The horsemanship displayed by him, though doubtless very 
fine, looks odd to an American. The cavalier of Rotten Row rises 
from his saddle at every step of his horse, affording the passer-by 
a fine view between his legs of the country beyond. But while 
I have been talking of this and that, I have forgotten Mr. Yellow- 
plush and his calves. The male leg is not usually a matter of 
interest, but the shanks of these high-bred minions greatly inter- 



MORE ABOUT LONDON. 61 

ested me. Such development I never saw. I have no idea where 
such a breed of legs originated. We have nothing like it in 
America. 

The attraction at Regents Park is the Zoological Garden. A 
man can well afford, after visiting the "Zoo," to renounce all 
future " animal shows." There is nothing else like it. Here are 
literally droves of kangaroos; a barnyard full of giraffes; deer 
of every description ; hippopotami, half a dozen of them; all sorts 
of water fowl; a wilderness of monkeys; a houseful of lions; 
the most gorgeous parrots and other tropical birds — and all in 
the most elegant residences ever occupied by birds and beasts. It 
would be delightful even if the monkeys were taken away. Lec- 
tures are delivered here on the habits of the animals, even more 
instructive than those I have heard from the lips of Major Tom 
Anderson. On Saturdays a military band performs, and the 
children ride the elephants, who start around, of course, "when 
the band begins to play." 

The flower-beds and the turf of these great parks are perfec- 
tion ; they are the resort of rich and poor, and the parade grounds 
of the military ; they are the beauty, the pride, and, in a sanitary 
point of view, the salvation of London. 

I have spoken of the minor squares of London, and it remains 
to refer to the outdoor statuary, which is very plentiful, and also 
very ugly. The great men of England glare at you in bronze or 
marble at every turn. The sharp nose of the Duke of Welling- 
ton points to every quarter of the horizon. In the matter of 
hideousness, the bronze Achilles, in Hyde Park, unquestionably 
leads. It looks like a big colored roustabout going up a gang 
plank with a car wheel. This terror was erected by a subscrip- 
tion of the ladies of England. The Duke of York column is 



62 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

another monstrosity. "Who was the Duke of York?" was my 
first inquiry. He was a brother of King George IV, and so on, 
was answered. But why he was placed on the column I never 
knew, until a tailor informed me one day that it was to get him 
out of the reach of his creditors. The Nelson monument, in 
Trafalgar Square, is no better, and four more beastly lions never 
were cast than those of Landseer, which form a part of the struc- 
ture. The statues of Palmerston and others are better, and now 
I come to speak of another, to me most interesting of all. 

I lodged most of the time while I remained in London at a 
house in Burton Crescent, and in the little square or crescent op- 
posite was the statue of an old bald-headed man seated in a chair. 
The last day of my stay, I went into the inclosure with my fellow- 
lodger, Capt. Arthur Shaw, the brother-in-law of Thackeray, and 
read for the first time the inscription. Ignoring the "break- 
lines" of the epitaph, this is what it said: 

" John Cartwright, born 25th Sept. 1740, died 23d Sept. 1824. 

"The firm, consistent and unswerving advocate of universal suffrage, 
equal representation, vote by ballot, and annual Parliament. 

"He was the first English writer who openly maintained the inde- 
pendence of the United States of America, and although his distinguished 
merits as a naval officer, in 1776, presented the most flattering prospects 
of professional advancement, he nobly refused to draw his sword against 
the rising liberties of an oppressed and struggling people. 

"In grateful commemoration of his inflexible integrity, exalted patriot- 
ism, profound constitutional knowledge, and in sincere admiration of the 
unblemished virtues of his private life, this statue was erected by public 
subscription, near the spot where he closed his useful and meritorious 
career." 

With this notice of an old forgotten friend of ours, who car- 
ried his wise old head far in the advance of the marching column 
of humanity, we close these first impressions of London. 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. 



TWO weeks in my own society at London had disgusted me 
with my associate, and I resolved to abandon the solitary 
system of traveling, try a "Cook" excursion ticket, and prepare 
to answer affirmatively, in future, the first question of my travel- 
ing fellow-countrymen, " Have you been to Parry ? " 

I proceeded by rail to Newhaven, and thence by boat to 
Dieppe. If any of my friends think of crossing there, I would 
advise them to borrow Capt. Boyton's suit and swim, rather than 
to take the steamer that I did. Not a fourth of the passengers 
could get into the little cabin, and consequently they remained 
on deck. I was one of those who thus had a "cold deck" "rung 
in" on them. The sea was very smooth, and this was a crowning 
mercy, for I know there was not room on deck for a wash-basin. 
Had Jonah added himself to the passenger list, he would have 
had to go overboard — not from any malice at all, but merely to 
make room for the rest of us. 

In the gray light of morning, we saw the coast of France, and 
the town of Dieppe. It looked exactly — bluff, old houses, and 
all — like the levee of a rather seedy town on the upper Missis- 
sippi. It is really a watering-place of some note, and lately had 
been visited by M. Thiers on an electioneering tour; but the 
"watering" part does not show from the dock where we landed. 
We saw some sad-looking men in uniform, and a very tall cruci- 
fix, whereat several of the British, who live in mortal fear of the 

(63) 



64 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

• 

Pope, began to bewail themselves about the "superstition of the 
country." In due time, we passed through the custom house. 
There was nothing dutiable in my valise. If there had been, as 
a measure of economy I should have handed over the "grip- 
sack" to the officer, and have asked him to make a present of it, 
with my compliments, to the French Eepublic. The officer in 
charge of persons, as distinguished from property, was a young 
man with fierce eyes and a mustache like two corkscrews. "Aire 
you Ingleesh ? " he said ; to which I responded in excellent 
French, "Oui." It was a dreadful thing for one to say whose 
grandfather "fit in the Revolution," but it saved time at any 
rate; and beside, the French think Americans are only a variety 
of the beast "Anglais." 

We took breakfast at what the British said was a "burly." 
The practice of uselessly ill-treating the French language at once 
commenced. The place was kept, I think, by an Englishman, 
and all the waiters understood English ; but that did not prevent 
their being assailed with such remarks as, "Garsong, wooly-woo 
bring me some jambong?" The result was distraction. 

We got into the cars at last, and started at a very moderate 
pace for Paris. The French railroads are not very strong, in the 
matter of speed, and the management lacks enterprise in the mat- 
ter of ditching trains, running into open drawbridges, telescop- 
ing other trains, and such-like — in which my own country can, 
as in everything else, discount the world. The country presents 
a great uniformity in this part of France, increasing, however, in 
fertility and beauty as you get away from the coast. Mile after 
mile you see rural villages with thatched roofs, and smart little 
towns with white plastered houses and fire-red tile roofs, and in- 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. - 65 

terminable long straight rows of tall straight poplars ; and little 
fields about as big as a tarpaulin, unseparated by fences, of differ- 
ent colors, and making the slopes of the hills look like vast 
patchwork quilts. In a wide valley, or rather where several 
valleys come together, you see the fine old city of Eouen, with its 
cathedral in the midst, looking more like some hoary old cliff 
than a house made with hands. You follow the windings of the 
Seine, a bright stream, which, somehow, always makes me think 
of a rosy old French gentleman when he feels good after dinner, 
it is so smooth and clear, and agreeable. Very much of a gentle- 
man is the Seine. 

You see, before you have gone far, that you are in an industri- 
ous country. You see countless tall chimneys, marking the sites 
of manufactories. There are no loafers about the stations — you 
understand how the French paid off the enormous war indem- 
nity. 

One comes upon Paris suddenly. But a few moments before 
you pass the line of fortifications, you are in a wood, like those 
around the towns of Indiana; but that is about the last "touch of 
nature" you see, for Paris is the most artificial, as it is artistic, of 
cities. As soon as you are at the station, you begin to note the 
difference between London and Paris — the superior height of the 
Parisian houses, their whiteness and brightness; and then they 
are lit up by the sun, the same one we have in America, and 
which has not yet been introduced into London. 

Passengers traveling with Cook excursion tickets go to the 

hotels designated, and I went thus to the Hotel Coquilliere, in 

the Eue Coquilliere, not far from the Rue Jean Jacques Rous- 

seau, which in its turn runs into Rue Montmartre, which — but I 

E 



QQ A KANSAN ABROAD. 

presume I have made the locality sufficiently clear to my readers, 
and will not particularize further. I suppose the Hotel Coquil- 
liere was a one-horse hotel, but I have gone farther to four-horse 
establishments, and fared worse. The landlord spoke English 
very well, though his name was Puisgasu, which the first class in 
French may stand up and pronounce. The landlady was one 
of the plumpest, and blackest-eyed of French women, and had 
the sweet, coaxing voice, peculiar, I think, to the women of 
France, for I have never heard it elsewhere, as a rule, and I have 
listened attentively all my life. The chambermaids wore white 
caps with frills, and were as ruddy as apples, and as stout as 
horses, and could carry a Saratoga trunk to the top of the house, 
without drawing a long breath. The table waiters spoke Eng- 
lish, but pretended that they understood my French, which they 
iid not; yet I could not help admiring their polite duplicity. 
Such was the Hotel Coquilliere, and long may it exist. If my 
country ever sends me to dream the happy hours away, save 
when waked up to draw my salary, in the laborious position of 
Minister to France, I shall transfer the flag of the American 
Embassy to the Hotel Coquilliere. 

During my stay the hotel was filled with English people — 
most of them very pleasant associates. I think, however, the 
English know the least about France of any people. I have 
spoken of the British fear of the Pope. Another bugaboo among 
the religious English is Voltaire. Why people should worry 
about Voltaire, who cannot read his works in French, and who 
have not read them in English, I do not know; and, besides, the 
man has been dead some years. This I know, for I saw his tomb 
in the Pantheon. Yet I was always hearing about the wickedness 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. 67 

of the French, all somehow attributed to Voltaire, who believed 
in nothing, while nothing was said about the historical influence 
of the men who perpetrated the massacre of Saint Bartholomew — 
men who believed a great deal. I sat next to an English parson 
at table, who seemed very anxious to go to some bad place, not to 
partake of the ungodliness thereof, but, as he said, to "see the 
manners of a people unrestrained by Christian influences." It 
occurred to me that, with a little exertion, he might see something 
of the sort in London. Americans, with all their faults as travel- 
ers, are not, I think, guilty of such Pecksniffism as this. There is 
no earthly call for it from anybody. I presume there are sinners 
in Paris; occasionally one straggles even into Topeka; but cer- 
tainly a more decorous city than Paris externally does not exist. 
I saw a dozen drunken men in London where I saw one in Paris, 
and nowhere in the latter city did I see the noisy, struggling, ill- 
smelling crowd that I have seen around the flaring gin-palaces in 
London. This assumption of the superior morality of London 
is stupid. 

Before I speak of the great sights of Paris, I may begin at the 
Hotel Coquilliere, and speak of familiar things thereabouts. To 
begin with, there was, very near, a great market — the Halle Cen- 
trale — which I never got tired of visiting. They dealt there in 
butcher's meat and vegetables 3 and poultry and fish, and the same 
articles that, save the addition of flowers, one sees in American 
city markets; but it was the arrangement of the articles which 
struck me. In the flower markets, the bouquets were very beau- 
tiful, but so were the beefsteaks, in their department. The legs 
of mutton were beautified and glorified, and liver and tripe suf- 
fered a change into something new and strange. I have seen 



68 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

carrots and beets grouped with as much skill as ever were living 
figures in a tableau. It was more than a market to me; it was a 
museum — an art gallery — as much so as the Louvre, which was 
not far off. The market artists were all women. In France, the 
"gray mare is the better horse;" in Switzerland, she is all the 
horse there is. The Parisian market-women were as polite as 
duchesses — that is, as polite as duchesses are supposed to be, for 
I cannot speak of them from personal acquaintance. In this 
market, then, I saw much of France and of French people. Be- 
fore I left the Hotel Coquilliere, I knew by sight all the shop- 
keepers in the neighborhood, and established a "comment vous 
portez-vous" acquaintance with a bakeress, who, with infinite pa- 
tience and politeness, studied out what I was trying to say on the 
" currency question," and explained to me the mystery of French 
money — the sous, centimes and francs. 

And in the desultory way in which I am writing this, I come 
to another matter — that of language. I verily believe that many 
people who would like to visit France, stay away because they 
dread to go to a country where they are ignorant of the lan- 
guage. A very little French is certainly a great help ; and how- 
ever badly you may speak it, the French are too polite to laugh 
at you, and make every effort to understand : but it is quite pos- 
sible to get about and enjoy life without knowing a word of the 
French language. An astonishing number of people, in Paris 
at least, speak more or less English. You begin, ofttimes, in the 
street, with fear and trembling, to put together French enough to 
ask the way to this place or that, to be met with an answer in 
your native tongue. I do not think that a Parisian ever failed to 
recognize an American or an Englishman at a glance. 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. 69 

In London you can see a great deal — by paying a shilling for 
it — but Paris is a "free show." It is worth a journey there to 
look at the shop windows. In London, I went to show places 
and to parks ; in Paris, I never tired of walking about the streets. 
I walked, I do not know how many times, along the great boule- 
vards, to the arches called Portes, St. Martin and St. Denis; 
and then there was the Champs Elysees, and a long walk in the 
other direction, along the Seine. Of the rides taken, according 
to programme, and which embraced most of the famous places, I 
shall not speak here. 

I know — now that we are speaking of externals — hardly a 
handsome church in London, (St. Paul's being, of course, above 
cavil or question,) and I do not know of an ugly one in Paris. 
The statuary in public places in Paris is always fine ; in London, 
as I have said, it is usually frightful. One wearies, however, of 
the repetition, in Paris, of Louis XIV. That big wig of his 
comes in everywhere, and yet he was not a very great man ; and 
all the cunning of the painter and sculptor has failed in making 
him look great. It is all wig and high-heeled shoes, after all. 
The only one of the old kings, in stone or bronze, that people 
take a second look at now, is Henri IV, who sits on his big 
horse, as he has for a long time, on the Pont Neuf. 

A great deal has been said about the improvements of Paris, 
carried on in Napoleon Ill's time, under the direction of Baron 
Haussman. The opening up of these immense avenues has in 
many cases made the city handsomer, but not always. I do not 
think the immense sweep of street-view that leads up to the Arc 
de Triomphe is handsome. There is such a thing as overdoing 
the wide-street business, and making a bleak, dreary perspective. 



70 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

Those who have seen Kansas avenue, in Topeka, know what I 
mean. The only thing to do is to fill up these immense long 
holes with rows of trees on each side and through the center, as 
they do in Washington. 

The great resort of Parisians, the Champs Elysees, owes very 
little to nature. The trees look diminutive ; and there is a great 
deal of gravel to very little grass; consequently it looks better at 
night than by day. Then the almost blinding light of long rows 
of gas lamps, all over the grounds, especially about the little thea- 
ters, make the place quite brilliant. Gas is used without stint or 
measure in Paris. The Frenchman loves light. 

But I find myself drifting back in mind — not to Paris, but to 
the people of Paris. The most prominent human beings every- 
where in Paris are, first, soldiers, with their everlasting blue backs 
and red legs ; but I do not wish to talk about soldiers now. Next 
to the soldiers come the workmen — the men who wear the blue 
blouses, and who have the reputation of throwing up barricades 
on more or less provocation, and fighting behind them. They are, 
physically, a fine lot of men — far superior, it seemed to me, to the 
soldiers. They are always clean; as the English "navvy" is 
always dirty. They are intelligent — you see a man with a blue 
blouse quite as often reading a newspaper as the man in a black 
coat and silk hat. After these, come the middle-aged business 
men, such as you see at the Bourse, and it seemed to me that they 
affected the style, or had it in some way, of Englishmen; but per- 
haps men who make money have a family resemblance the world 
over. I know that in Wall street, in the Exchange in London, 
and in the Paris Bourse, you see faces very much alike. Young 
Frenchmen, especially the students, with their fine, sharp features, 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. 71 

made me often think of the best class of young Americans, and I 
checked half-a-dozen times an inclination to speak to such on the 
presumption that they were my countrymen. 

My brief visit dissipated the last slight remains of the impres- 
sions received in childhood — impressions probably inherited, for, 
hundreds of years ago, the Englishman set up an imaginary 
Frenchman, whom he dubbed "Johnny Crapaud," a meager, 
black, thin-legged creature, who screamed and gesticulated like a 
monkey, who did not believe in God, and who ate frogs. This is 
the Frenchman of the old English comedies, and has been faith- 
fully copied and reproduced on the American stage — and he is 
just as natural, and no more so, than the stage Yankee, with his 
"tarnal" and "tarnation," words that I, who spent my youth in 
New England, have never heard seriously uttered in the whole 
course of my life by anybody. 

The Frenchman — the Parisian, at least — is as unlike this car- 
icature as anything can be. In fact, it always appeared to me that, 
while animated in conversation, the features of the men I met in 
Paris, when in repose, possessed an expression of sadness. This 
may be the effect of the overwhelming afflictions — the flood of 
sorrows which has rolled over Paris within the last few years; 
but I am inclined to think it is permanent and national. I never 
saw a Parisian boisterously happy. I once saw, though, a very 
happy company ; it was a wedding party at the little village of 
Joinville-le-Pont, just outside of Paris, on the banks of the Marne. 
Our party had finished their dinner, when the wedding party 
arrived, and sat down to a long table under an arbor looking out 
on the river. The table was neat and bright, and there was wine, 
plenty of it. Not only the bridal party proper were on hand, 



72 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

but apparently all the relatives on both sides, from old people 
down to children. The father of the bride was there — a noble- 
looking man, with hair and mustache as fine as silk and white 
as snow. They all drank the vin ordinaire, which forms a regular 
part of the dinner as much as bread, and numerous bottles of 
champagne besides; and when the dinner was over, the bride — a 
sensible-looking but not pretty girl — made the entire circuit of 
the table and kissed each of the gentlemen on both cheeks, while 
the bridegroom extended the same courtesy to all the ladies. 
This was the happiest lot of French people I ever saw, and there 
was no noise, no vinous excitement — none of the features of the 
American "tear," nor of the maudlin demonstrations that occa- 
sionally come in at the close of a long series of New -Year's calls 
in our country. 

And I saw another and very different scene, in which the same 
class of people took part. It was in the great Parisian cemetery, 
the Pere la Chaise. As we were riding out — an English friend 
and myself — we passed a humble funeral procession; the gentle- 
men all on foot, and all walking bareheaded, in the burning sun, 
as they had done, perhaps, for miles. Our cabman lifted his hat 
as we passed. We happened to be near at hand when the com- 
pany reached the grave-side ; and after the prayers were said, one 
gentleman after another advanced and sprinkled holy water upon 
the coffin. The principal, the only mourner, I thought, was a 
young priest, who for a moment gave way to a burst of grief, and 
it was a thing to look at and remember, the way in which, without 
any demonstrativeness, each man advanced and gave his hand to 
that lone mourner. 

They say, notwithstanding all this, that the French are pro- 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. 73 

foundly insincere. It may be, or it may not be. I am, it is true, 
an American — one of a very talented and able race of men ; but it 
has not been given me, the power of knowing the hearts and souls 
of my fellow-creatures. Omniscience is not one of my specialties, 
consequently I only judge by what I see and hear; and so, while 
the French may be, as my clerical British neighbor remarked, 
"unrestrained by Christian influences," it seems to me, using my 
"lights," that the French are a gifted, a brave, a courteous, a 
deeply -unfortunate and greatly-misunderstood people. 



THE SIGHTS OF PARIS. 



TO attempt to see in a week a city to which six months might 
be devoted, is a discouraging task, but it is a still more 
hopeless undertaking to tell in one chapter what might well make 
a volume. The reader will, therefore, be charitable enough just 
to consider this, not as a description, but as a memorandum of 
some few of the many things to be seen in Paris. 

Most people feel a curiosity to know what traces remain of the 
ravages of the Communists. I should say, very few. It is in- 
deed astonishing how rapidly and thoroughly damages have been 
repaired. The palace of the Tuileries is still a ruin, but one 
hardly noticed in connection with the vast uninjured pile of the 
Louvre. An immense scaffolding was already up preparatory to 
rebuilding the Hotel de Ville. The Column Vendome is in place 
again ; and there are, in the heart of the city at "least, no traces 
of the destruction of private property. 

I am at a loss which to place first among the attractions of 
Paris. I suppose, however, that out of ten persons eight, at least, 
would say the Louvre ; but the great historical edifice of Paris is 
certainly Notre Dame. Its position is picturesque; its history has 
formed a prominent feature in many romances; yet when I en- 
tered it, by one of those unlucky mental impressions which strike 
us at the most inopportune moments, there came to me, not the 
visions of the earlier and more glorious days of the cathedral, 
but the scene described in one of the bitterest passages in that 

(74) 



THE SIGHTS OF PARIS. 75 

exceedingly bitter book, "Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea," in 
which he describes Notre Dame as being lit up of a chill winter 
morning by thirty thousand lamps, and resounding with a Te 
Deum sung in honor of the author of the massacres of December 
— Louis Napoleon. 

The Invalides is a most interesting place, or seemed so to me at 
least, on account of the old soldiers who live there. I noticed 
that quite a number of the Englishmen in our party took their 
hats off to these mutilated old veterans. The tomb of Napoleon 
is worthy of the man whose ashes repose in it, but the Invalides 
seems desecrated by being made the burial-place of the lesser 
Bonapartes. The Napoleon was the only man of his family. 

The Pantheon is a strange-looking building, on account of the 
absence of any outside windows, which gives it a dead - wall ap- 
pearance. We went down into the vaults, where the French offi- 
cer in charge read in a high-pitched and most melancholy voice 
the inscriptions on the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau. This 
was translated into English by the guide. A famous echo is con- 
cealed about the premises, but I failed to hear it. 

The Gobelin manufactory of tapestry is one of the wonders 
of Paris — the surprise being that such marvelously beautiful 
work should be produced by processes which look as simple as 
those used by a Navajo Indian woman in weaving a blanket. It 
is nearly all done by hand, and the results are pictures — copies 
of the finest works in the Louvre, and hardly distinguishable 
from the original. Bob Ingersoll once said that the tapestries he 
saw in Europe reminded him of a tablecloth at Metamora, in the 
second week of court; but I am afraid Robert hasn't a good eye 
for tapestry. It is astonishing how the varying expressions of 



76 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

the human countenance can be woven. There are some tapestries 
in Windsor Castle, from the Gobelin, depicting scenes from the 
story of the Golden Fleece, in which the passions of love, joy, 
grief and despair, are as faithfully portrayed as if done by the 
greatest painter on earth. 

The various arches and columns with which Paris abounds, 
have been often described. The Arc de Triomphe is the most 
magnificent; but one gets a trifle tired of military monuments. 
The names of Napoleon's victories are repeated a thousand times 
over — attached to streets, to boulevards, to bridges, and finally 
affixed to all sorts of monuments. Of course I had sooner see a 
thousand monuments to Napoleon than one to Louis XIY; but 
one would like to be reminded occasionally of something besides 
bloodshed. 

I passed several times the Champ de Mars, the site of the 
next international exhibition. The buildings, which were being 
rapidly pushed forward, are situated on both sides of the Seine. 
The art building is an immense affair, in the Trocadero, on a rise 
of ground facing the river. The buildings for other purposes are 
directly opposite, and connected by a bridge. These last-named 
buildings are built of iron. The site is a magnificent one. 

One of the pleasantest days of my life was spent in a little 
trip which embraced the Bois de Boulogne, Longchamps, St. 
Cloud, Versailles and Sevres, in the order named. The morning 
was delightful, and the fair weather covered the expedition, with 
the exception of that part of the "home stretch" between Sevres 
and Paris, when it rained — not with the regular London drizzle, 
but a genuine American shower — not, of course, as violent as we 
have in Kansas, but such as would be considered a good rain in 



THE SIGHTS OF PARIS. 77 

Pennsylvania and that region. One could spend a week at Ver- 
sailles — not in the town, which is one of the dullest on earth — 
but in what have been in turn the royal, the imperial, and are 
now the "national" palaces and grounds. Common things, 
with something uncommon about them, attract the most atten- 
tion; and nothing, I believe, was looked at with more interest 
than the state carriages and harness, which are kept near the pal- 
ace of the Little Trianon. They were certainly very gorgeous, 
and, shining in the sun, these moving masses of gold and purple 
must make royalty for the time an attractive thing. We were 
shown through the Little Trianon, and saw beautiful pictures, and 
statues, and furniture; but, somehow, these empty state apart- 
ments always impress me with a sense of dreariness and discom- 
fort. I never saw a state bed that I thought I could sleep in, nor 
an imperial chair that wouldn't make my back ache — but I sup- 
pose kings have some kind of thrice-illustrious and most serene 
backs adapted to the furniture. I believe I would rather "take 
mine at ease at mine inn" than in any palace of them all. 

The Palace of Versailles, a place famous in history, is most 
remarkable for its immense collection of portraits — French, Eng- 
lish, and even American. I actually saw what might be termed 
an American historical picture; it represents Washington and 
Rochambeau discussing the plan of attack at Yorktown. As a 
rule, there is no recognition of the fact among European artists, 
past or present, of the existence of the continent of North Amer- 
ica. However, there is in the Palace of Versailles the picture I 
have^mentioned, and several portraits, among them the iron face 
and bristling white hair of old General Jackson. 

The porcelain manufactory of Sevres is an interesting place: 



78 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

like the revised statutes of the Medes and Persians, it never 
changes. It is a government institution, and every French gov- 
ernment supports it. No matter what may happen in the revolu- 
tionary way, they go on with their pottery at Sevres. A change 
of government only produces a change in the initials on the tea- 
cups and saucers. By looking at these, you can always tell who 
was uppermost when the particular teacup in hand was manufac- 
tured. In this manufactory may be seen some of the works of 
Palissy, king of potters, whose brief biography by Lamartine is 
one of the noblest tributes to a good and faithful man ever 
written. 

I have alluded to the Louvre, and with it may be mentioned 
the Luxembourg. It would be idle to attempt any description of 
these immense collections. In the Luxembourg may be seen a 
very large number of pictures familiar to Americans through 
copies, engravings, and even wood-cuts. Among these are several 
of Eosa Bonheur's pictures, and Eegnault's great equestrian por- 
trait of the famous Spanish general, Juan Prim. 

One day was devoted to a visit to Champigny, the scene of the 
terrific fighting of the 30th of November and the 2d of Decem- 
ber, 1870. General Ducrot, with a force consisting of National 
Guards and "Mobiles" — that is to say, comparatively raw troops 
— attempted to force the investing lines of the Prussians, expect- 
ing a similar attack on the other side by Gen. Bourbaki. We 
drove out along the turnpike road by which Ducrot advanced, 
and where he lost 1,200 men in going less than a mile. The vil- 
lage of Champigny is on the lower slopes of a hill, the crest of 
which was finally reached by the French. The hill is covered 
with orchards, high stone garden-walls, and scattered houses. The 



THE SIGHTS OF PARIS. 79 

narrow, steep streets of the little village were the scene of a 
dreadful fight, and the plastered fronts of the houses to this day 
are spattered all over with the traces of musket-shots. Most of 
the houses were riddled with shell. The new tiles showed where 
repairs had been effected in the shattered roofs, but many houses 
are still in ruins. We see at Champigny, if not in Paris, what 
war means. Much of the property is for sale. The ruined 
owners cannot rebuild it. It was from this scene of desolation 
that we went back to the little village and saw the wedding I 
have described in a previous letter, where everybody seemed as 
happy as if Bourbaki had helped Ducrot out, and as if Ducrot 
had not been obliged to fall back with his half-frozen army to 
starve in Paris. One of my companions in Champigny was a 
Scotchman, many years a resident of South Carolina, who had 
served in the Confederate army. He and myself, for the first 
time, had the pleasure of inspecting a battle-field in which we 
had no personal interest. 

Of course I visited various places of amusement. I am 
ashamed to tell how much I was affected — for that is the word — 
by the beauty of the grand new opera house and the opera I 
heard therein. Tastes differ, however, and an Englishman who 
was present, and who I thought was a clergyman in thin dis- 
guise, objected to the opera because there was "too much sing- 
ing" — an objection which struck me as having a flavor of 
freshness and originality about it. I afterwards heard a country- 
man of his growling because there was no striking mountain 
scenery in Holland — where, I presume, he had expected to find 
it. The most "Frenchy" play I saw was the " Juif Errant" at 
the Porte St. Martin theater — a dramatization of Eugene Sue's 
romance, the "Wandering Jew." I occupied a seat in the par- 



80 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

terre, which, in consideration of two sous in hand paid to a bus- 
tling French woman, had a cushion on it. The gentlemen around 
me wore blue blouses and had a weakness for garlic, a vegetable 
I do not "hanker" after as a rule. They also had a habit of 
climbing over me and going out between acts, though I must 
acknowledge, in justice to them, that they always said, "Pardon," 
or "SHI vous plait," as they did it. Notwithstanding these draw- 
backs, the play was very enjoyable on account of the excellence 
of the acting. The part of Rodin, the Jesuit, was played by 
M. Paulin-Menier, and was a wonderful piece of work. It was 
easy to know the political sentiments of those about me, for 
where Blanche inquires of the old soldier, " Count of the empire : 
what is that, Dagobert?" and he responds, "Une betise," i. e., "an 
absurdity," there was a general cheer and laugh. Besides this, I 
went to the circus in the Champs Elys^es. I believe some of the 
gentlemen in the ring were my countrymen; they spoke English, 
at any rate. But one of the most astonishing incidents at this 
circus was that I laughed at the clown. He did not say anything, 
which, perhaps, was what made him so funny ; but, be that as it 
may, I laughed till the tears ran from these aged eyes — for the 
first time — at a circus — in these last fifty or sixty years. 

There are a thousand other things which interested me, but 
which I will not stay to describe, or attempt it. If any of my 
readers ever go anywhere, they will go to Paris. That is one 
of the things certain; and when they get there, they will be 
charmed, and, if they will, instructed. I trust all will be able 
to go, and with a somewhat higher motive than that avowed by 
one of my fellow-citizens, who, in the midst of the Atlantic, ex- 
pressed his anxiety to be in Paris, "for," said he, "there are five 
or six places where they have American mixed drinks, and 
they're waiting for me there." 



SWISS DAYS. 



IT was "on a summer evening" that the Doctor and I bade 
adieu to Monsieur and Madame and the concierge and the 
chambermaids and the waiters and the bootblacks at the door of 
the Hotel Coquilliere, and set out on a tour to and through 
Switzerland. A man-of-all-work attached to the house of Puis- 
gasu accompanied us to the station with the ostensible purpose 
of attending to our baggage, or rather the Doctor's — a task for 
which we feared our French inadequate. The waiter — in con- 
nection with everybody attached to the station — contrived to go 
raving mad for some minutes, during which interval the baggage 
must have checked itself and got into the baggage-car of its own 
accord, but at any rate it got there. 

It was with a faint twinge of homesickness that we saw the 
lights of Paris disappear. We had resided in that city for a whole 
week, and felt like old residents. For my part, I had wandered 
so much over the same ground, that it seemed as if the Street of 
the Good Children, and the Street of the Dry Tree, to say nothing 
of the Street of John James Kousseau, had been my play-ground 
from infancy; I had grown attached to the young fellow who 
hung about the great market near the Hotel Coquilliere with 
"Pauvre Diable" in conspicuous letters upon his cap, and grieved 
that I should look upon his face no more. However, the best 
friends must part, and so we rolled away in the purple evening 
from Paris, and the wide boulevards ; and Louis XIV with his 
f , (81) 



82 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

high heels and big wig; and the groups in front of the cafe's, 
with smiles on their faces and spoons in their hands; and the 
glorious company of cab-drivers, with their glazed hats and red 
vests; and the three armies that perpetually garrison Paris — the 
army of workmen in blue blouses, the army of soldiers in red 
trousers, and the army of priests in shovel hats. 

No Pullman, no sleep, is the rule with your correspondent, 
and so it was a pleasure to see daylight again, and with it came a 
strange country, and a regiment of big men with helmets march- 
ing along a turnpike with the ponderosity and solidity and accu- 
racy of a steam-plow. We were out of France, and these soldiers 
were Germans, and not many hours after we were at Bale, "which 
the same" is in Switzerland. 

An erudite gentleman of far-western origin long ago remarked, 
that a man must be a startling case of fool who could not spell a 
word more than one way, and Bale is one of the words he meant. 
It is spelled Basle, Basel, and, I believe, in other ways. I have 
selected the easiest — and, while the reader is at perfect liberty to 
call the name what he likes, I would remark that many respect- 
able people in the neighborhood pronounce it " Bawl." 

At Bale, then, in Switzerland, we "struck" a new country, and 
something new in the way of language. The people of Switzer- 
land speak any language unknown to the particular traveler in 
hand. When addressed in German, they answer fluently in 
French. If you pride yourself on speaking the pure Ollendorf 
French, you will awake a storm of German which fairly sweeps 
you off your feet. The best way is to call two Swiss to your 
assistance: one will certainly speak French and the other Ger- 
man — then address them both in English. By following these 



SWISS DAYS. 83 

directions, even a deaf-mute may travel all over Switzerland with 
perfect safety. 

Bale was "laid out" before that curse of our modern and arti- 
ficial society — the "city engineer" — was invented. The word 
"grade" was unknown in the infancy of Bale. The necessity of 
digging down trees, and leaving some houses high and dry, and 
others low and wet, for the sake of getting things on the "estab- 
lished grade," was not apparent to the early Common Councils of 
Bale. Where the Creator had made a hill, it was supposed to be 
intended as a permanent arrangement, and has been suffered to 
remain as such. If the hill ascends at an angle of forty-five de- 
grees, that is the " grade." All the streets of old Bale are paved 
with what are called "cobbles" in New England; and very steep, 
and queer, and crooked, and "cobbly" are the streets aforesaid. 
The roofs, also, of Bale are as high and steep as practicable, and 
their surface is broken by numerous windows, which have steep 
little roofs also. Sunlight is not much of an object, as it costs 
nothing; and so there are many streets in the town that enjoy the 
luxury only for a little while in the middle of the day. Some of 
the houses are flanked with towers, and have a rusty and resolute 
appearance, being relics of those charming old days when battle- 
axes, crossbows, catapults, slings, and a kettle of Greek fire were 
conveniences in every well-regulated family. 

At Bale there is a famous minster, built heaven knows when, 
and in it there was once held a council, which sat, I do not know 
how many years, and decided I do not now remember what. I 
think they "shipped" one Pope and elected another; but my 
memory fails me now as to details. The minster is now in the 
hands of the Protestants. The guide, who spoke Franco-Ger- 



84 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

man-English, was very courteous, and took us into the armory, 
where are weapons from all the battle-fields in history. I in- 
quired for relics of several lively conflicts, and he unhesitatingly 
produced them. I believe if I had asked him for a shield and 
javelin used at Bunker Hill he would have brought out the prop- 
erty. The guide pointed out to us a curious wooden head, which, 
if I correctly understood his polyglot remarks, was intended to 
indicate to the preacher when the congregation had had about 
enough. By concealed clock-work the eyes of the head are made 
to swing around and the tongue to protrude in a manner suffi- 
ciently awful, I should think, to make any preacher stop in the 
middle of his discourse and get "leave to print." I remember 
little of the minster of Bale except this wooden head, and a stone 
knight carved on the front of the edifice, who had run his spear 
lengthwise through a dragon . The dragon looked sick. 

I should not omit to say that the Bale I have been describing 
is the old town. There is a new town, as smart and handsome as 
could be desired, with the usual boulevards and parks and statues ; 
for Bale is a very rich town, made so, in part at least, by the 
manufacture of ribbons. St. Elizabeth's, a fine modern church, 
was erected at the expense of a single citizen. At Bale, one sees 
the Rhone, the "blue and arrowy Rhone," a very fine stream, and 
deserving of all the verses which have been written about it. 

Leaving Bale, we went by rail to Lucerne; and on arriving 
there, went to the Hotel des Cygnes, which hotel I selected because 
the name reminded me of the Marais des Cygnes. It was ap- 
proaching sunset, and a slight shower was falling, when I looked 
out of a window and saw a rainbow which eclipsed all the other 
rainbows of my life ; for it stretched like an arch from mountain 



SWISS BAYS. 85 

to mountain, and the bright lake of the Four Cantons lay beneath. 
The mountain of the neighborhood is Mount Pilatus, named in 
honor of Pontius Pilate. It is a noble eminence, and why Pilate's 
name should be conferred on it, is an unfathomable mystery. I 
have known towns that might be named Pilateville, or ISTerosburg, 
or New Sodom, with perfect propriety ; but why this fine moun- 
tain should be named after a great historical criminal, is, as I 
have said, quite a puzzle to me. 

We reposed in peace at the Hotel "Marais des Cygnes," and 
rose with the sun, the lark, the early bird that catches the wake- 
ful worm, and all the other early-rising things, and looked out 
upon Lucerne and the lake. The former is a handsome town, 
and old, of course. In the old time, it was the gathering-place of 
those Swiss mercenaries who sold their swords to foreign powers. 
From thence they marched "over the hills and far away," to 
fight — perchance to die. The virtue of these men was fidelity; 
the bargain made, gold for blood, and they stood to the agree- 
ment to the bitter end; and to this virtue of theirs is erected at 
Lucerne the most poetical and impressive monument I have ever 
seen. In a quiet spot, a little out of the town, arises in the midst 
of surrounding trees a bold cliff, and in the face of this has been 
carved a gigantic lion, designed by the great Thorwaldsen. The 
poor brute has been mortally hurt — you see the broken spear in 
his side — but in his death agony he rests his great head and one 
mighty paw on the shield of the house of Bourbon, as if making 
one last convulsive effort to defend it. Thus is preserved the 
memory of the Swiss guards who were killed in Paris, upholding 
the cause of their adopted sovereign. But poor lion — poor, brave 
old lion ! thou mightst have found a better pillow for thy dying 
head than the shield of that false house. 



86 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

We decided to take a voyage on the lakes — for what is really 
the same body of water is called in different parts by different 
names. I despair of giving any idea of the beauty of the 
scenery. The only American lake scenery I have ever seen ap- 
proaching it in beauty is that of Lake George, but there the 
majestic mountains are wanting — at least such mountains. The 
voyage was a continuous delight. The last few miles were upon 
the waters of the Lake of Uri, famous for its connection with the 
history of William Tell. Every headland has some story con- 
nected with Tell — and yet people say there never was any Tell. 
At Fluelen we left the boat, and proceeded to Altdorf. We 
would like to hear anybody dispute the existence of Tell in Alt- 
dorf, for here is his image in plaster, standing on the spot where 
he stood when he let fly at the Ben Davis on his son's head, and, 
to "make assurance doubly sure," the spot is marked where the 
boy himself stood. A nice little village is Altdorf — Old Town — 
and at the inn of the Golden Key you may get a dinner which 
would have softened the heart of Gessler himself. The town is in 
a very narrow valley, the great mountains stretching away on 
either hand, and on one side the town has climbed up the hill a 
little way, and there are little vineyards and orchards and gar- 
dens, and the wood in which no man may cut a tree, because the 
trees stand between the people and the dreadful avalanche which 
would soon make an end of Altdorf; and high up amid the half- 
hidden stone walls and the maze of green trees and vines, is the 
monastery of the Capuchins. It was high noon when we clam- 
bered up to the little retreat, and the mellow light of the sun 
shone on all. No man greeted us when we entered the court 
yard, but the black gowns of two of the monks lay on the wall, 
as if their owners had hastily retreated on hearing approaching 



SWISS BAYS. 87 

footsteps. In the plain chapel there was no occupant, and we 
noted only a carved arm and hand projecting from the pulpit, 
and holding out the cross. We went into the garden. It was 
on the steep side of the mountain, and the earth was held in 
place by terraces, against which pears were trained, and then 
there were evergreens carved in fantastic shapes, and a fountain 
that sang to itself all day and all night, and below, seen through 
the trees, were the spire of the church and the roofs of Altdorf. 
How old and still, and how far away from our New World it 
seemed. One in this place might well believe there had never 
been any trouble in the church, nor any Luther, and that there 
was none now ; still, as I clambered down a narrow path to the 
village, the Swiss guide asked me if I was from the United 
States, and said that he had once lived in Peoria ! Yes, he had 
lived in Peoria, and also in St. Louis, where he would like to 
live still, but his health had failed him, and so he had to come 
back to Altdorf. His heart was not, it seemed, in these moun- 
tains, which I had come so far to see, nor did he care for the song 
of the Capuchins' fountain which I had stopped to hear, but he 
had rather be at Peoria, or perhaps St. Louis, which was larger, 
a good deal, than Altdorf and Peoria put together. He talked 
of America till we got to the church, which had a magnificent 
altar, and pictures, which, the man from Peoria said, came from 
Rome, and then he took us into a chapel, and there, on shelves, 
were the skulls, the guide said, of the Swiss guards in whose 
honor the great lion at Lucerne had been carved. 

In this little voyage on the lake, and in the visit to Altdorf, 
and for some hours after, the Doctor and myself had the benefit 
of the society of Mr. Henry M. Knox, of St. Paul, an American, 



88 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

agreeable even in Europe. I inferred, from what this gentleman 
told me, that while in London he did not stop at the Langham, 
and yet he was indeed to me " a man and a brother," full of cour- 
tesy and abounding in information. The American name would 
be far more popular abroad were there more well-informed and 
unpretending travelers like my St. Paul friend, and fewer loud, 
bumptious, purse-proud ignoramuses. 

Two things a man should never do if he can help himself: 
firstly, he should never eat anything he don't like; and secondly, 
he should never go anywhere merely because it is the fashion to 
do so. The second of these rules I violated in ascending Eigi, 
and remaining there to see the sun rise the next morning. The 
ascent by railway was very pleasant, and the sunset view was 
glorious. In remaining all night, however, my conduct is ex- 
plainable only by the answer to Archbishop Whateley's cele- 
brated conundrum, "Why does a donkey prefer thistles to hay?" 
The hotel was the stupidest in Switzerland — one of those never- 
sufficiently-abused places where they fire off the dish-covers, and 
bring in the courses to the " Dead March in Saul." Then it was 
cold — as it always is — and the humane proprietor has posted 
notices that guests will not be allowed to carry off bed-clothes in 
which to see the sun rise: in other words, no man is allowed to 
"wrap the drapery of his couch about him." No, not if he 
freezes his bunions off. Mr. Kirk, in his otherwise excellent his- 
tory of Charles the Bold, says that, on Eigi at sunrise, "Succes- 
sive groups of giant Alps rise out of the night and receive on 
their icy brows warm kisses from the radiant dawn." As far as 
my experience goes, I emerged from the gossamer sheets and 
gauzy blankets of my Eigi bed at the first notes of the Alpine 



SWISS DAYS. 89 

horn (gratuity fifty centimes). It was not a cloudy morning, as 
is generally the case, but there was no "radiant dawn" — the sun 
sneaked up from behind a mountain and kissed nothing. It was 
cold, as well as " stale, flat and unprofitable." So much for sun- 
rise on Eigi. 

A pleasant sail in the bright morning brought us back to Lu- 
cerne, and we went thence to Alpnacht and to Berne, and so on 
to fair Geneva. 



SWISS DAYS. 



BEFORE we proceed further on our travels through Switz- 
erland, we will deal out a bit of general information on 
the subject of Swiss tourists. Two kinds of people go to Switz- 
erland: one goes to perform an operation called "doing" the 
country, the others merely go to see it. The first class insist on 
climbing the mountains, and go lugging about a lot of lumber in 
the shape of alpenstocks, and wear all kinds of hideous gaiters, 
and carry knapsacks, and try to look as nearly as possible like 
Bunyan's Pilgrim before his burden of sins was removed. They 
know all the ten thousand Swiss peaks by name; they have 
"done" the Matterhorn, and intend to "do" the Wetterhorn and 
a great many other horns beside. The English lead in this sort 
of thing, and every summer a number of them are killed in 
climbing the mountains. There is an organization called the 
"Alpine Club," designed to encourage the idiotic destruction of 
human life. It is quite successful in its ends and aims. 

It is quite unnecessary to say, that during my few days in 
Switzerland I did not cooperate with the "Alpine Club." As John 
A. Anderson would probably illustrate it, there is no ampelopsis 
about me. I do not care to climb, and have always thought Mr. 
Longfellow's young man "Excelsior" was a lunatic. The joys of 
snow-blinded eyes, sore lungs, thumping hearts and blistered legs, 
to say nothing of an involuntary trapeze performance over the 
edge of a cliff four thousand feet high, have never impressed me. 

(90) 



SWISS DAYS. 91 

So I did not "do" Switzerland. And yet I would say for the 
benefit of constitutionally timid and lazy persons like myself, that 
a tour through Switzerland is not absolutely dreary and joyless, 
even without an alpenstock or hob-nailed shoes, or a knapsack, or 
a cane with the names of all the elevations in Switzerland in- 
scribed on it. One can appreciate the "purple peaks that tear 
the drifting skies of gold," though looking up from the green val- 
ley that rests like a bird's nest amid the glorious mountains that 
rise, first green, then purple, then gray, then white and shining 
like the gates of the New Jerusalem. Not a charm of blue lake, 
or white and waving, rainbow-girt waterfall, or mysterious gla- 
cier, or winding road, or village set like a jewel in the brow of 
the mountain, need be lost, even though the traveler be the very 
quietest person in the world, and destitute of the least ambition 
for "doing" anything. Having "unpacked my heart" of these 
"views," I will begin our travels in another paragraph. 

From Lucerne, we went by boat to Alpnacht. Here we were 
to be transported by diligence *to Brienz. I believe there were 
some diligences in the crowd of vehicles, yet due diligence had 
not been used in getting enough of them ; but there was every- 
thing else that goes on wheels. If "variety" is "spice," it was an 
uncommonly well-seasoned lot. And horses were there, too, of 
every variety of architecture — "Gothic," "Early English" (very 
early), " Pre-Historic," and so on. Why any doubt should exist 
about William Tell or Arnold Winkelried, I do not understand; 
there were certainly horses there that remembered both those 
gentlemen. 

There was a very large number of passengers to be divided 
around among these luxurious equipages. The assignment was 



92 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

effected by calling out the numbers, of which each passenger held 
at least one, and the calling was done in German. Now I knew 
but one German numeral, "zwei," which I had heard mentioned 
in my native country in connection with "glass o' lager," and 
how was my companion and myself to know when the numbers 
24,877-8, respectively, were called? Here was a "language les- 
son" indeed needed. It was "fixed" — a franc slipped into the 
hand of the gentlemanly and urbane caller solved all difficulties. 
Somehow, numbers made no difference after that. It was no ap- 
preciable time till we were in our "kerridge," and rolling off, and 
we had the pleasure of hearing the numeration table in German 
going on as long as we could hear anything. It really does not 
make much difference what is your vernacular in Switzerland, so 
you speak franc-ly. 

It was a long ride over a magnificent road — up, up, all the 
way for miles — though at times the rise was imperceptible. We 
passed from the shores of one little lake to those of another — a 
sort of rosary of lakes. The mountains rose close on the one 
hand, and just across the lake or the narrow green valley, on the 
other. The base of the mountain is covered with pines or other 
forest trees, and these are protected by law, as they protect the 
country below from the avalanches. Nevertheless, you see the 
long tracks of these descents, like a seam on the mountain-side, at 
not infrequent intervals. It is astonishing at what angles trees 
will grow. The pines stand thick where it seems as if the earth 
must infallibly slip. Above the line of forest, extend in many 
instances miles of pasture land ; for where the tree gives up the 
attempt, the humble grass provokes grim nature to a smile. 
Sometimes the grass grows to the very summit, but generally the 



SWISS DAYS. 93 

sky-line is broken by a succession of sharp peaks, having that 
saw-like appearance which in our mountains is indicated by the 
word "sierra." These sharp points are called by the Swiss, 
"needles," and it is said that they are crumbling and breaking 
away ; and I have an idea that in the good time coming, say in a 
billion years or such a matter, the face of nature will be calmer 
and brighter and more peaceful ; rain will fall where is the burn- 
ing desert now ; the volcanoes will be extinguished ; and in that 
golden time, when earth is what Eden was, and even church 
choirs have ceased to fight, the rugged outlines of the Alps will 
have greatly changed, and the "needles" will have lost their 
points, and the victorious grass will wave in triumph where now 
is the bare and lightning-splintered rock. This description and 
prediction applies only to the lower Alps; of Mont Blanc, the 
Matterhorn, the Jungfrau, and that style of mountain, I have 
little hope. Immense in surface, traversed by tremendous gorges, 
the, dark shadows of which may be seen miles away, crowned with 
eternal snow, cold, proud, and looking down on other mountains, 
they will never be ameliorated, but will ever remain magnificent 
solitudes, broken only by adventurous Englishmen with a passion 
for breaking their necks. 

Scattered over these lofty pastures of which I have spoken, are 
the Swiss chalets — curious houses, which, perched in these lofty 
places, look like martin boxes. How the people get up there, or, 
having got there, get down again, this deponent knoweth not. 
These pastures are roamed over by the famous Swiss cattle. One 
authority says that there are a million cows in Switzerland, and 
that they are valued at one hundred dollars each. I never saw 
over a dozen of them ; but if you look up at the high pastures 



94 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

with a glass you will see dark specks — those are the cows. They 
are in color very like the Jerseys, but larger, and have heavy 
legs, produced, I suppose, by constant climbing. Swiss cheese 
is found everywhere in Europe: it is quite palatable, though 
it does not linger in one's memory like Limburg. 

In the valley, as we journeyed toward the Brunig Pass, we 
saw orchards and attempts at farming; but I think the crops 
from one of the farms might be gathered in the pockets of a 
good-sized Ulster. The people have other resources : wood carv- 
ing is one of these, and the work done in this line is astonish- 
ingly beautiful. All along the mountain roads women and 
girls offer for sale fruits, flowers and cakes. In Switzerland the 
"woman question" is settled by the supremacy of the female. 
When we doubled our team to make the ascent of the pass, it was 
a woman who hitched the horses and walked beside them with 
even steps to the top of the hills. The women are the "business 
men" everywhere. In the different cantons different female 
costumes are worn, and photographs of the same pretty girls in 
the same costumes are for sale everywhere. It would seem that 
the artist used up the stock of female loveliness in Switzerland. 

All this time we are journeying by the route through the Bru- 
nig Pass. We reached the head of the pass at last; and you 
would like to know what we saw? Then you must go and see for 
yourself. Everything I ever saw in dreams of lofty mountains; 
of "airy pinnacles that syllable men's names;" of cataracts 
bounding in snowy whiteness into mid-air and passing away in 
rainbow-tinted mist; everything I ever saw on canvas of flying 
clouds or azure sky; everything I ever imagined in waking hours 
of forest, dale or stream, was there. 



SWISS DAYS. 95 

We looked our fill at this beautiful prospect, for our vehicle 
made a long stop at a little inn just at the head of the pass, and 
all the passengers save the Doctor and myself got out. Nothing 
was wanting. It was evening, and it was still. 

The road is very steep and very crooked down the descent, but 
is an admirable specimen of engineering, and we went swiftly 
and safely down to the lake, where the steamer was waiting. We 
passed the last hours of daylight on the lake, fortunately having 
light enough to see the cataract at Giessbach. 

It was 9 o'clock at night when by boat and rail we arrived at 
Interlaken, and here we realized the force of Bishop Heber's line, 
"Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile." A more 
unaccommodating and insolent lot of brutes than those who 
formed the "staff" of the Victoria Hotel at Interlaken, I never 
had the ill-fortune to meet before or since. They were too much 
for us, and we sought safety, "rest and a light, and food and fire," 
at the Hotel Kitschard, where we were treated with the utmost 
humanity. 

First impressions, with me at least, settle the business, so I saw 
nothing agreeable about Interlaken, left it as soon as possible, and 
regretted that it was necessary to stay so long. The prettiest view 
about Interlaken, as Dr. Johnson thought about Scotland, is the 
road leading away from it. 

Another little lake voyage on a lovely day brought us to Thun. 
At this little town is located the artillery school of Switzerland, 
and here Louis Napoleon, then a captain in the Swiss artillery, 
passed several years. It was curious to think of a man for a time 
so prominently before the eyes of the world as having once vege- 
tated in this out-of-the-way place, and one wondered in what 



96 A KAJVSAir ABROAD. 

dreams he may have indulged of future greatness when living his 
hum-drum life among these mountains. 

Evening brought us to Berne, a place which had for years pos- 
sessed an interest for me, as having been the birth-place of a very 
dear friend. A queer, Middle- Age sort of place is old Berne. I 
never saw a town that seemed so full of, say the fourteenth cen- 
tury. The names of the streets, and the aspect of the streets 
themselves, as seen in the evening-time, all carried one back to 
the old days. The promenade of the town is the Terrasse, or the 
cathedral yard. It is surrounded by a parapet, over which you 
look down a lofty wall into the chimneys of the houses of the 
mouldy-looking streets along the river bank. An inscription, set 
in the parapet, tells how a wild student jumped his horse over at 
that point. The student escaped, became pious from the shock, 
and was, in after-days, a clergyman ; but this did not essentially 
benefit the poor horse, who was killed by the fall. 

Berne is particularly rich ,in town pumps, or fountains, of 
which there are enough to fill simultaneously all the iron tea-ket- 
tles of all the Eussians in Kansas. Each of these fountains is or- 
namented by a graven image of some kind. One represents a 
fierce-looking reprobate devouring an armful of children. The 
young ones who are waiting to hear the call of "Next," appear to 
fully comprehend the horror of the situation. I suppose this 
statue is intended to keep in order the young Bernese, but those 
solid specimens of Swiss youth appeared quite indifferent. Com- 
ing up street I saw a boy behind a tree with his eyes shut, count- 
ing vigorously in German. I knew at once the game of "Hide 
and seek," or, in my Western vernacular, "High spy." This boy 
was the "blinder." I learned from the Doctor that, in his boy- 



SWISS DAYS. 97 

hood in Scotland, the impressive formula of "Iry, ury, ickery, 
ann," etc., was used in counting out the first "blinder," exactly as 
in the United States. Men and nations may differ, but boys are 
the same in every country and every age. I have no douht that 
Jacob and Esau played "mumble-peg" according to the rules 
governing the game in our time. 

Berne has a famous clock. In the fullness of time a man hits 
a bell with a hammer, a procession of bears march out and back 
again, a cock crows twice, and a rummy-looking old king nods 
his head, opens his mouth, and moves his scepter with each stroke 
of the hour. Occasionally the king fails to perform his functions, 
the bears do not appear, or the cock is out of order; but on the 
occasion of our visit, man, bears, king and cock all went off with 
charming regularity. 

I think the original location of the story of "Go it husband, 
go it bear," must have been Berne, for the town is not only full 
of bears of wood, stone and metal, but several live bears have 
been kept for ages in a pit for the benefit of the corporation. To 
go to Berne and not see the bears would be unpardonable. The 
bears were not as savage as I could have wished, and seemed sat- 
isfied to eat carrots — though the inhabitants informed me, with 
great pride and pleasure, that the bears had once eaten an English- 
man who had tumbled into the den. 

Berne derives its principal distinction from its bears and from 
its being the capital of the Swiss Confederation. We visited the 
"Capitol." The "Senate" and "House" were very neat, hand- 
some rooms, though I saw there no such portraits as those which 
adorn the legislative halls of Kansas ; in fact, I may say that I 
have never seen pictures like those anywhere else ! 
G 



98 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

The country between Berne and Freiberg is not very interest- 
ing, as seen from the car windows. We stopped at Freiburg not 
to see, but to hear its famous organ, which had been warmly com- 
mended to us by Mr. Knox, whom I have mentioned in a previous 
letter. Freiburg (this is only one way of spelling it) is a very 
high, dry, rocky old place, inhabited by stolid, hard-working 
people, who wear wooden shoes, and do not seem to be happy. 
There is, in a rocky little plaza, a lime tree, which commemorates 
the battle of Morat, in which the Freiburgers assisted the other 
Swiss in routing and butchering the powerful army of Charles the 
Bold. Morat is miles away, but a Freiburg boy ran all the way 
to his town with a lime-tree branch in his hand as a symbol of 
triumph, uttered the word "Victory," and fell dead in his tracks. 
The lime branch was planted, and is now a wide-spreading tree, 
with a great trunk. There are wooden seats around the tree, and 
the limbs are held up by timbers. On the benches sat sundry 
wooden-shoed Freiburgers, smoking long pipes, while a sort of fair 
went on around about, the principal objects of traffic being red 
handkerchiefs and old scrap iron. As the hour for the organ 
playing had hot arrived, we spent some time, after the lime tree 
was disposed of, looking at the carved work about the main en- 
trance of the church of St. Nicholas. In connection with the 
church of "Santa Claus," the patron of children, one had a right 
to expect something benevolent in the way of sculpture, but "on 
the contrary quite the reverse," the ornamentation was decidedly 
fiendish. An angel was depicted weighing a lot of the good and 
bad with a pair of old-fashioned balances ; the wicked, of course, 
"kicked the beam," in spite of a devil who was trying to pull 
them down. On the other side, a devil, every line of his coun- 



SWISS DAYS. 99 

tenance marked by business energy, was carrying off a quantity 
of children in a basket to a boiling cauldron, while another devil 
was blowing the fire under this kettle with a hand-bellows. 

Two score people were gathered in the church, when the ring- 
ing of a bell announced that the organist had taken his place. 
Outside was hot, toiling, dirty, commonplace, ugly Freiburg; 
within was dimness and coolness and stillness, until the music 
broke the silence and woke the echoes of the vaulted arches. 
"With the first note, the outer world, so drear and hard, seemed 
far away, and we were in the green valley amid the everlasting 
mountains. It was sunshine and song for awhile, and we heard, 
near or far, fall or faint, the notes of the Alpine horn. Then the 
thunder muttered in the distance; then the pine tops shivered 
and sighed ; then a mysterious wind seemed to sweep through the 
space above our heads, and there was the sound of falling raku 
Anon came the storm in all its fury, and the organ crashed and 
roared till women turned pale; and then, most wonderful of all, 
one heard above the fury of the storm, voices like the voices of 
human beings, lost, calling, calling, calling in notes of entreaty 
and despair. No other instrument made by man have ever I 
heard, that had such ahuman voice as the great organ at Freiburg. 
This wonderful performance lasted an hour, and closed with a 
clangor, as of the shutting of silver doors upon music that had 
come once and would never come again. 

Everything had a new light after we left the church, and we 
were miles away before we ceased to hear in our "mind's ear" 
(for I suppose the mind has an ear as well as an "eye") the 
music of the organ. It was a preparation for the beauteous sight 



100 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

when Lake Leman, shining in the sun, burst upon our vision, 
skirted by the vine-clad slopes. We passed by Vevay, and that 
reminded me how we read in our geographies that Switzers estab- 
lished a town of Vevay in the United States, and entered upon 
the cultivation of the vine; but the geographies did not tell how 
they succeeded, and it is a long time since I have heard of them. 

Now that I have reached Lake Leman, I might as well imi- 
tate the laudable example of Captain Scott's coon and "come 
down." The country is as well known to everybody in the 
United States as "Down the Santa Fe road" is to the readers of 
Topeka newspapers. From Byron, with his "Prisoner of Chillon," 
down to "Joaquin Miller," every traveling poet has had his say 
about Lake Leman and its shores. Lausanne and Geneva sound 
to everybody like Mark Twain's "Lancaster" and " Centreville," 
in the Holy Land. 

There is such a thing as the "cream" of a journey, and it does 
not take long to skim it off. This process was performed, as far 
as Switzerland was concerned, by the time we reached Geneva. 
We went to Chamouni, of course, and we looked attentively at 
Mont Blanc, but it did not impress me as did a hundred other 
views in Switzerland. I believe I would rather see Pike's Peak. 
The ride from Geneva to Chamouni, by diligence, was rather in- 
teresting, for one of our fellow-travelers was an American lawyer 
who had traveled before ; knew French and German ; acted as in- 
terpreter for all hands, and was a capital talker on any and every 
subject. It did me good to feel that my fellow-citizen was the 
brightest man in the diligence. 

A few hours sufficed for Chamouni and Mont Blanc. I will 



SWISS DAYS. 101 

return to Chamouni when the present village has been justly de- 
stroyed by an avalanche for extortion, and will ascend Mont 
Blanc when it can be done by railway. 

These last words may seem to indicate that some feeling of 
regret followed the little journey I made in Switzerland, but this 
is not true. On the contrary, it left bright memories, which will 
brighten, as do apples, when come the colder days. Should I live 
to be very old — which heaven forbid — when the sun above is 
no longer bright and warm; when the few faces of the dear ones 
left shall be dim; when I shall forget the things of yesterday, 
even names that I have repeated a thousand times; even in that 
last scene, when the poor old faded curtain is about to fall, I be- 
lieve that I shall live over again the days of my pilgrimage — 
young days, bright days, "Swiss Days." 



BRUSSELS AND ITS BATTLE-FIELD. 



GOING north from Paris I took the best railway, the Che- 
min de Fer du Nord, and saw the best country that came 
under my observation in France. After passing St. Denis there 
seem to be no traces of the great war. The country lies open to 
the eye, the fields are larger, the cultivation better, and the vil- 
lages more prosperous-looking than in either eastern or western 
France. 

I had very few traveling companions. It seems to me that the 
French are not great travelers. I never saw in France what 
would be considered a full railroad train in England or America. 
For some time before Mons was reached there was but one person 
in the carriage with me — a portly old gentleman with a bald 
head. He did not get out at the dining stations, but solaced him- 
self with some bread, pears, and a bottle of wine which he had 
with him. During his repast he remained as he had done be- 
fore, silent; but as we passed the frontier, he pointed out the 
window, uttered the solitary word "Beige," and commenced to 
talk politics. 

I am an indifferent talker about politics in English, and in 
America, and it was certainly up-hill business to discuss French 
politics in an "unknown tongue," in Belgium; but whether I suc- 
ceeded in "defining my position" or not, my companion blew his 
French horn with no uncertain sound. He was from Tours, he 
said — a town overrun with priests and monarchists. He thought 

(102) 



BRUSSELS AND ITS BATTLE-FIELD. 103 

MacMahon was a numbskull, and as much of a tyrant as he knew 
how to be ; Thiers ( since dead ) had been of some service, but was 
no longer useful ; Gambetta was a firebrand ; but it was when he 
spoke of the late L. Napoleon that the bald head of my vener- 
able friend grew red as fire, and he denounced him as the 
greatest criminal of the age. He said Charles X and Louis Phil- 
lippe were good-enough men personally, but, like all other kings, 
were "pretenders." Any man who set himself up as a king was 
an impostor. When pressed for an answer as to his own favorite 
statesman, he replied that men were nothing to him, that he went 
for principle — a rather vague way of talking pending an elec- 
tion. I mention this case because it was the only instance in 
which I heard a Frenchman approach anything like a political 
conversation ; and this was not in France, but Belgium. I fancy, 
however, that the discontented tone of this old gentleman's talk 
reflects the general feeling in France. The poor French — they 
have struggled for liberty lo these many years ; have shed their 
blood for it ; but they are as far from it as ever. It needs some- 
thing besides taking down the word "Imperial" and substituting 
for it the word "National;" it takes something besides the words 
"Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite," carved in cold, dead stone, to 
make a people free. 

The country in northern France, which, in real-estate agents' 
parlance, would be called "gently rolling," becomes flat in Bel- 
gium. The roads are lined with trees, fairer and larger than the 
trim poplars that divide the landscape in France, and clouds of 
smoke rising at different points along the horizon betoken the 
presence of manufacturing towns, for Belgium is one of the great- 
est producers of manufactured iron. 



104 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

Brussels at first struck me as a dreary town. Paris having set 
the fashion, the rage in all European cities is now for boulevards: 
these, in their newness and vastness, produce a Sahara-like im- 
pression on the traveler. They will look better a century hence, 
when their immensity is reduced by the now small trees. Brus- 
sels, however, improves on acquaintance. The Hotel de Ville is 
a fine old building, and the little square is of historical interest, 
for in it Egmont and Horn were executed. The square is a mar- 
ket-place now, and the day I saw it was flower day, and the whole 
space was radiant, mostly with fuchsias, which appear to be a 
favorite flower in the old country. Not far from the Hotel de 
Ville is the house where was heard the "sound of revelry by 
night." It is now a club house. My indignation was stirred, not 
far from here, in visiting a famous lace manufactory. Here the 
marvelously beautiful lace shawls, which sell almost for their 
weight in gold, are made. The work is all done by hand, and so 
slowly and painfully that it makes one's eyes ache to see the 
women at their toil. The woman in charge told me that four or 
five years is required to learn, during which the women receive 
no wages, and that after they have acquired the art they receive 
the munificent sum of two francs or about forty cents a day. 
They wanted to sell me a pocket handkerchief, about the size of a 
sheet of letter-paper, for thirty-five francs, but I declined. I was 
unwilling to support such a system of extortion, and shall never 
wear any Brussels lace as long as I live. 

The cathedral of St. Gudule, in Brussels, is a very beautiful 
building, and has an advantage, rare in these old edifices, of 
standing on high ground. Notre Dame is on an island, and 
Westminster Abbey in the Thames "bottom;" but St. Gudule is 



BRUSSELS AND ITS BATTLE-FIELD. 105 

on the slope of a hill, and surrounded by a high platform, so wide 
that carriages drive around it. The interior is filled with "the 
dim religious light" so often spoken of — so seldom seen. The 
carved wood-work of the pulpit is wonderfully fine; the figures, 
life-size, representing the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the 
Garden of Eden. There is a monument in this church, which is 
surmounted by a figure of Charity giving a little child a piece of 
bread, that is full of poetry and sweetness. 

The public grounds of Brussels are not extensive, but very 
handsome, and much resorted to. The city, of course, is full of 
statues, the finest being that of Godfrey of Bouillon, king of 
Jerusalem, who was born in the neighborhood. These old 
Crusaders look well in bronze, but they were an uncomfortable lot 
when alive. Few more bloody beasts have ever lived than the 
adored Richard of the Lion Heart. I am glad he and his outfit 
are all comfortably dead and buried. 

Prior to going to Brussels, I had forgotten all about the battle 
of Waterloo, but being so near the scene of that once-celebrated 
action, my recollections being aroused by seeing the house where 
"soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again," and hearing 
also the "car rattling o'er the stony street," I resolved to go out 
to the locality from whence the order for the "first four" to 
"forward and back" was interrupted by the "cannon's opening 
roar." 

You go out to the field by an English coach, driven by an 
English coachman, who assured me, however, that the horses 
were not British, but a "bloody lot of old screws" of Belgian ex- 
traction. All my fellow- voyagers were English, going out to 
admire the field where some thousands of their countrymen got 
killed for nothing. 



106 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

The road winds for some distance through the Bois de Cambre, 
a very handsome pleasure-ground constructed from the natural 
forest — just such as might be formed near almost every American 
city. You then come out on a macadamized road, constructed 
during the reign of Napoleon, to connect Brussels with Paris, and 
passing through a succession of villages and fields, you finally 
reach the ugly little village of Waterloo, which gave its name to 
the battle. In the little Catholic church of the village are mon- 
uments to many of the officers killed in the fight, and one slab 
actually commemorates the fact that some private soldiers were 
killed there also. On seeing this, the ladies of the party broke 
into exclamations of delight at the noble spirit which prompted 
this recognition of the bravery of mere common soldiers; where- 
upon I quoted to them, with a feeling of calm and sweet satisfac- 
tion, the well-known passage from their own historian, jSTapier, 
how the "British soldier conquered in the cool shade of the 
aristocracy." 

A few more fields passed, and you are on the ground where, we 
are told, was decided the ''destiny of Europe," which destiny has, 
nevertheless, been "decided" several times since. A guide — a 
sharp-looking young fellow in a blouse, who spoke English with 
a strong French accent, and who had evidently learned his Eng- 
lish from cockneys — started at the head of the party. There 
were but two skeptics in the party, one of them being a young 
Englishman, a conservative in politics at that, but who, for some 
reason, disbelieved in the doctrine that Wellington made this 
world and all that therein is. We walked together, and in the 
rear of the rest of the party, so as not to interrupt them in their 
"devotions." I think the guide regarded us as "separatists," and 
added occasionally to his usual speech, for our benefit. 



BRUSSELS AND ITS BATTLE-FIELD. 107 

The field of Waterloo has not been greatly changed in appear- 
ance since the day of the battle. There are some lines of trees 
where there were none then, and a bit of forest near the farm of 
Hougoumont has been cut down, but the roads are on the same 
lines, and the appearance of things generally, on the August day 
when I beheld it, was essentially the same as on the June Sunday 
when the armies met. It is in its outline very much like the 
country lying around the north side of Burnett's Peak, near To- 
peka, though in better cultivation : as a rule, a gently-undulating 
region, covered with grain and grass fields, undivided by any 
fences except scanty hedges, for the "herd law" prevails in Bel- 
gium. 

Looking over the field, it would be hard to see why it should 
have been selected as a place to give battle, were it not for one 
position, and that is the farm of Hougoumont, which was held by 
the English from first to last. Imagine a farm-house in New 
England with the old orchard adjoining it, and all the buildings, 
house, barns and barn-yard surrounded by a heavy, solid brick 
wall ten feet high and over a foot thick, and you have an idea of 
this position. Against anything but artillery, the place, if reso- 
lutely defended — as it was — ought to be held, one to four, as it 
was. To add to the strength of the place, it was covered by Eng- 
lish batteries further back in the " prairie," who could fire over it 
into the timber — now gone — in which the French advanced, 
pretty well covered, I should think, to a point close to the wall. 
There appears to have been no attempt to breach the wall with ar- 
tillery, the French finally contenting themselves with shelling the 
interior, by which the little chapel was set on fire, partly burned, 
and the wounded, who had been placed therein, suffocated. You 



108 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

can see the charred cross-beam over the door to this day. No 
description ever conveyed to me, as did the sight of the place, the 
savage nature of the fight. The French surged around this in- 
closure and rushed for it like wild-cats. They penetrated to the 
orchard, but were driven out. They found the barn -yard gate 
open, and got inside a few feet, but were forced out; the gate was 
shut in their faces by two men, and then one of the assailants 
climbed to the top of the gate and fell riddled with musket balls. 
The brick wall was loop-holed (the openings remain), and a 
platform was built on which the English stood and fired over. 
For the French, it was like charging the steep sides of a double- 
decker with all her guns blazing. The outside of the wall looks 
as if it had had the small-pox, but the French fire was thrown 
away alike on the brick wall and the iron men who defended it. 
The wall crumbled here and there, and here and there a soldier 
fell, but neither the wall nor the British soldier gave way. That 
brick wall stayed the onward progress of Napoleon. Against it 
his eagle dashed himself and died; 

The place is cursed, I think. The same family own it, I be- 
lieve, that did in the days of Waterloo, but no longer reside there. 
Traces remain of the formal old French garden, with its balus- 
trades now fallen, and overgrown with grass. The old apple trees, 
whose roots wind about the bones of dead men, have a .mourn- 
ful look. It is a doleful place, which the summer sun cannot 
brighten. We went away from there, and walked to the high 
mound of earth erected to commemorate the victory. This is 
ascended by a flight of steps, and from thence you can see every 
part of the field — here yellow, here brown, here green, here 
marked by the straight line of a dusty road, here traversed by a 



BRUSSELS AND ITS BATTLE-FIELD. 109 

scrubby hedge-row, dotted at intervals with white-plastered farm 
houses with red roofs. All the places, which on one Saturday 
were nothing and on the evening of Sunday had gone into his- 
tory, were in sight — La Haye Sainte, La Belle Allliance, and the 
rest. When we got out into the open ground the guide grew ani- 
mated. He described the charge of the Imperial Guard, the last 
effort of the French. "Zey were command," said he, "by ze 
Zheneral Cambronne. Zey call on him to surrendare, but he zay, 
'Ze Guard die, he nevare surrendare.' " And then he added, look- 
ing significantly at the Englishman and myself, "Victor Hugo 
zay he zay somethings else." On top of the mound the guide 
went over the story with all the animation of the "delineator" of 
a panorama. " Vare you zee zose leetle black booshes," said he, 
"stood ze Scot Grees and ze Enniskeeleners. Ven Napoleon he 
saw 'em, he zay to Marshal Soult, "Ah zose gree horses, zose terri- 
ble gree horses; if I had four such regiment I would take ze 
vorld. But I take zem in zis time.' 'Mon Empereur,' zay 
Marshal Soult, 'you no know zose English; you cut him in 
pieces, but he nevare give up.'" As you stand on the mount 
there stretches away, almost from beneath your feet, a straight 
road apparently level with the surrounding surface. This was once 
the "sunk road of Ohain," in which, according to Victor Hugo, 
the head of the column of charging French cavalry was swal- 
lowed up. It then ran along the bottom of a sort of trench, fif- 
teen feet deep, but the removal of the earth to build the huge 
mound has leveled one side of the trench. 

Accustomed to the long lines of the great battles of our late 
war, to an American the space in which the battle of Waterloo 



110 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

was fought seemed singularly limited. You can see from one end 
of the field to the other without the aid of a glass. 

The ground was more favorable for the Allies than the French, 
owing, as I have said, to the possession of the farm of Hougou- 
mont, and also to the fact that Wellington was able to keep a con- 
siderable force sheltered behind what we would call in Kansas a 
"roll" in the "prairie." The French, being the attacking force, 
necessarily had to take more medicine than the Allies, or, I might 
as well say, the British, who made the real fight. It was a field 
where sheer courage and endurance had more to do with results 
than strategy. The defeat of Napoleon was due to the stubborn 
valor of the British soldier; it was not the "sunk road," nor the 
arrival of Blucher. I firmly believe that the French would have 
driven any other troops off" the ground long before sunset. 

British pluck won Waterloo ; British gold paid for it : but what 
England won by Waterloo I have never been able to discover. It 
is pitiful to go into the church at Waterloo village and see the 
monuments of mere boys who died on that dreadful day; to see 
the monument of the "loved and gallant Howard," whose mem- 
ory has been kept green by a single line of Byron. Why did 
these men die ? It was to put back in a palace, from whence he 
had recently shot out like beans from a scoop-shovel, a fat-headed 
old Bourbon of a king, in whom no Englishman ought to have 
taken the least earthly interest. The Englishman, lover of lib- 
erty as he was, fought and died at Waterloo to keep in power a 
lot of putrid people with crowns, who have since been ignomini- 
ously kicked into the streets within my recollection. If the cause 
was bad, what is to be said of the reward ? In the partitions which 



BRUSSELS AND ITS BATTLE-FIELD. Ill 

followed, what did England get ? Nothing. The miserable Bour- 
bons she bolstered up had nothing to give. What remains now of 
the "state of Europe," as arranged after the battle of Waterloo? 
Nothing. England, after hunting the great Napoleon to death, 
found an ally, and was proud of him, in that miserable fraud, the 
"nephew of his uncle." England, to crush Napoleon, allied her- 
self with Russia, and to-day about half England thinks a bloody 
war necessary to check the designs of that same Russia on the 
British possessions in India. England fought at Waterloo to keep 
up the ancient order of things — to support the "Dei gratia" style 
of monarchy — and who now believes in that style of government? 
Who reverences the "first gentleman in Europe" now? Who, 
like the Englishman. Thackeray, has portrayed the idiocy or the 
wickedness of the "Four Georges?" Everything that England 
fought for at Waterloo is disreputable now. 

If the design of the enormous expenditure of blood was to 
obliterate Napoleon, it was not a success. The man who, from a 
sub-lieutenancy, made his way, without one faltering or hesitat- 
ing step, to the throne of empire, could not be extinguished by- 
Waterloo, nor even by the practice of studiously calling him 
"General" Bonaparte. Even the high road over which admiring 
British tourists go to Waterloo is a monument to his energy. It 
is but a step from Waterloo to Antwerp, and what says the local 
chronicler there? 

"That Napoleon caused millions of men to perish in his cause, that he 
was ambitious and an egotist, what does it matter to us, who owe to him 
our new existence? Our duty is to remember, not the man nor the des- 
pot, but the second founder of our great city." 

It is so everywhere — the monuments of the genius of Napo- 



112 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

leon are ineffaceable; but what monuments remain to the miser- 
able French, Spanish and Neapolitan Bourbons, for whose sake 
the young, the brave, the true-hearted agonized and died at Wa- 
terloo? Had I been a Prussian or an Englishman, I suppose my 
feelings at Waterloo would have been different; as an American, 
an impartial judge, I came away from Waterloo with, it is true, 
a great admiration of the fighting quality of the British soldier; 
with more respect for the soldierly talent of Arthur, Duke of 
Wellington, but, withal, infinitely more contempt for the British 
statesman whose stupid and servile attachment to a despicable 
herd of petty tyrants kept the world at war for years, only at last, 
that, as a French picture of the time depicted it, a troop of pigs 
should enter the Tuileries while an eagle flew away. 



ANTWERP AND ITS CATHEDRAL. 



PAETLY from choice, partly through accident, I tarried 
three or four days in the venerable city of Antwerp. In 
that time I saw this quaint old place to its oldest and queerest 
nooks and corners; I almost lived in its cathedral, and I wit- 
nessed the pageants in honor of the three-hundredth anniversary 
of the birth of the famous painter, Peter Paul Rubens. 

Antwerp is a brave old town, one of the ancient "free cities," 
or communes; where were invented and practiced arts of all 
kinds; where, in their infancy in this world, flourished two 
famous things, to wit, printing and liberty ; where the merchants 
were princes; where every man labored faithfully in the calling 
wherein God had placed him; where, when the tocsin sounded, 
the burghers mustered, each man under the banner of his trade — 
the draper under his, and the fuller under his, and did battle for 
freedom ; for, in the thirteenth century, when the world was in 
bondage, it was written in the city ordinances of Antwerp, "In 
the town and liberty of Antwerp all men are free ; there are no 
slaves." And besides, to make all this more interesting to an 
American, the brave story of Antwerp has been told last and 
best by our own countryman, the late lamented Motley. 

When you go to Antwerp, it seems as if Alva and Farnese were 
men of yesterday; as if the Emperor Charles had recently abdi- 
cated ; as if the town had been just rebuilt after the destruction of 
the "Spanish Fury." You meet the burghers on the street with 
solid, sober faces, the exact counterparts of those you see in the 
h (113) 



114 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

old Flemish pictures; old women wear head-dresses like those 
worn three hundred years ago ; there are black old streets that 
look as they did when Columbus sailed to discover America ; you 
go into a certain old room, and see a printed proclamation from 
William the Silent, looking as if the Lester Crawford of Antwerp 
had just posted it there. The highest officer of the town is yet 
called the burgomaster, just as he has been time out of mind. 
They have a king in Belgium, but you hear but little about him 
at Antwerp ; the burgomaster and the aldermen and the town 
clerk rule there. 

What makes this seem most strange is, that Antwerp is not a 
decrepit or decaying town ; it is a nourishing seaport, and keeps 
pace with the times, and has street railroads, and boulevards, and 
a park, and gas, and daily papers ; yet, as I tell you, there are the 
men and women with faces three hundred years old ; and there 
are houses that have forgotten their own ages; and there is the 
burgomaster as of old, and the narrow houses of the guilds, with 
high gables coming up to a point by successive steps like stairs ; 
and there are the old Dutch names for the streets and places — 
everything queer and old and solid and Dutch, all mixed with 
new things, as in the Grand Place, where is the Joiners' House, 
the front covered with carvings showing how the carpenters and 
joiners' trade was carried on centuries ago ; and near, on another 
house, is the sign "Maehianen Howe," showing that the New 
Man, the Yankee, has arrived with his sewing machine. And 
speaking of America, one is carried back, when in Antwerp, to 
the days when New York was not New York, but New Amster- 
dam. You see names yet common in our greatest American city, 
and Hoboken is a suburb of Antwerp. 



ANTWERP AND ITS CATHEDRAL. 115 

In Antwerp most of the educated people speak French, but all, 
high and low, speak "Flamand" — Dutch, in fact, differing little 
from that spoken in Holland ; a language that looks like English 
in print, and sounds like a mixture of German and English. 
Though not as vivacious as the French, the Antwerpers are a 
talkative people, and cheerful withal, and eat as if the safety of 
the "town and liberty of Antwerp" depended upon it. 

There is a modern park in the town, but the ancient "plats" 
are the principal resorts ; these are paved with stone and sur- 
rounded by high houses. Here the men and women of Antwerp 
have gathered always. There are two great rallying-places, the 
Grand Place in front of the town hall, surrounded by the 
houses of the trades, and there is the Place Verte — though there 
is nothing green there except some rows of young trees — and 
towering above the Place Verte, and above the trees, and all the 
houses, and looking down on all the green and flat kingdom of 
Belgium, is the glory of the town, the cathedral of Notre Dame, 

The tower, so the Antwerpers say, is the highest in the world, 
I do not know ; I only know that it seemed to grow higher every 
time I looked at it, and was highest when I saw it last. I wan- 
dered down by the Steen — the old prison, where they show you 
terrible dungeons where the Spaniards tortured prisoners and 
killed them — and I went far out among the docks and ships, but 
every time I turned about there was the great, gray, gothic spire, 
all covered with carved and curious things in stone, rising story 
on story, up and up like a flame of fire, till, when the day was 
dull and the clouds hung low, the gray tower seemed to mingle 
with the gray sky. Often and often I found myself standing in 
front of the great portal, leaning over back to look up at that old 



116 A KANSAS ABROAD. 

builder's miracle, and I looked until my head swam and it seemed 
as if the spire might all at once come down with a crash. 

The spire has a great clock, and it has, moreover, a chime of 
bells, and there is the great bell " Carolus," named for the Em- 
peror Charles V, who was the bell's godfather when it was bap- 
tized; and there is the great bell "Maria," which rang first over 
four hundred years ago. "Carolus" weighs 16,000 pounds, and 
"Maria" 11,000 pounds; and he who hears those bells roaring 
and clanging in the dim night-time will not forget it, no, not till 
he dies, for their voice is like the voice of doom, and makes one 
think of the Judgment Day. 

When you look from the entrance of this church to the high 
altar, it is like looking down a road in the woods, for it is more 
than three hundred feet, and the six rows of pillars make one 
think of a beech or oak forest. 

There are in this cathedral countless pictures, some of them 
worth their weight in gold. There are many altars, and so vast 
is the edifice that several masses may be said at once before con- 
siderable congregations without confusion. On Sunday, it seemed 
that a service was held somewhere in the church at every hour. 
You can walk around these congregations in the great space 
without disturbing any one ; but coming in just as the church was 
lighted, on a dim, rainy evening, I sat down and looked at the 
priest, who spoke from the pulpit of carved wood, representing 
human figures and birds, peacocks and doves and eagles, all 
carved out of the heart of oak, and as natural as life. I looked 
at the priest, though I understood not a word he said, for he spoke 
in the tongue of the Low Countries, and as I looked I thought, 
good Protestant as I am, that they have dim eyes to see and dull 



ANTWERP AND ITS CATHEDRAL. 117 

ears to hear, who think that the Catholic church — the Koman 
Catholic church, if you please — has fallen upon evil days, or 
totters to its fall. 

That "revolutions never go backward," is a comfortable doc- 
trine for those who believe in revolution, but it is not always true. 
This cathedral of Antwerp was ravaged by the iconoclasts, who, 
in 1566, broke down the altars and the "images;" then, two hun- 
dred years later, came the French infidel, and did the same thing ; 
yet to-day the two great bells call the people to the worship of 
the old faith. The waves of the Eeformation swept over the 
Low Countries, but to-day scarce a trace of that great movement 
remains in Belgium. If that revolution did not go backward, it 
ceased to go forward. Twice, as I have said, has this great Catho- 
lic church of Antwerp passed into the hands of aliens; more than 
this, it has been three times ravaged by fire : yet the devotion to 
the old church has been sufficient to rebuild it, and the same 
spirit would, I believe, rear it again in strength and beauty, 
though it were laid in ashes to-morrow. It is idle to say that the 
religion which reared, all over Europe, these wonderful build- 
ings ; which has cared for them during the vicissitudes of stormy 
centuries; which guards and adorns them to-day as holy and 
precious, is a fading and dying thing. Call it " mummery," this 
worship, and "superstition," this faith — it is not my business to 
call names, but to tell of things as I see them ; and I say, that, 
however much consolation doctors skilled in prophecy may de- 
rive from ingenious combinations of the horns and beasts of 
Revelation, what I have seen with my merely unassisted human 
vision, in these old countries, has convinced me that the Catholic 
church is the most powerful organization on earth, and has the 



118 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

promise of countless centuries of vitality. We may laugh, us 
Protestants, at the young mothers of Antwerp, who seek with great 
reverence, after the birth of their babies, a particular wooden 
statue of the Virgin in the church of St. Willibord, but our 
merriment does not change their belief in the least; nor does it 
abolish the fact that, as the mother believes, so the child, when 
old and dying, is apt to believe. "I will shiver you as I do this 
potsherd," said Napoleon, dashing a costly vase at the feet of the 
Pope ; but at the last, he said, in dreary St. Helena, " I die in the 
faith of the Holy Eoman Catholic church;" and again, "it is good 
for a man to die in the faith of his fathers." 

In Europe — even in Switzerland, once the home of Calvin, 
the refuge of Knox — the symbols of the Catholic church are 
everywhere. At every turn in the road you see the wayside 
cross ; over the door of the modest inn is the Virgin and her 
Babe ; and going through the dark streets of Antwerp, at night, 
I have cast my eyes up to the only light — a lamp fastened to the 
old wall — and saw, ghastly, and white and rigid, the dead Christ 
on the cross, an object of devotion by night as by day. 

All this, and more, came to me as I looked at the priest of 
Antwerp, one of a mighty army of such, wearing different guises, 
but all wearing the cross ; laboring in distant countries, but all to 
the same end — the "propagation of the faith" as it has existed 
for ages — and doing their work with a zeal, a patience, and 
a courage as great to-day as it was in the days of Xavier or 
Loyola. 

There are a great many churches in Antwerp beside Notre 
Dame. Of these the most splendid is that of St. Jacques. A 
good -sized volume might be written descriptive of this church 



ANTWERP AND ITS CATHEDRAL. 119 

alone. Its chapels are decorated with the most precious marbles. 
In many instances the chapels are the gift of single families. 
Among the saints whose names are most frequent in Antwerp 
are St. Barbara, whose assistance is invoked to save from sudden 
and unexpected death, and St. Roch, who aids in time of pesti- 
lence. One of the latest saints canonized was an Antwerp mason, 
St. Flores. Adjoining St. Andrew's church is one of the most 
curious sights in the world. It is called "the Calvary." It is a 
grotto or labyrinth, composed of coal cinders, gravel and broken 
bottles. The place is full of caves and recesses, and crowded with 
statues of prophets, saints, angels and devils. It is indescribable. 
The most wonderful thing in all these churches is the wood-carv- 
ing, of which there is an incredible amount. I could never have 
believed, had I not seen it, the grace, beauty and majesty that the 
artist's genius can bring out of blocks of wood. There are "an- 
gels bright and fair," rank on rank, with their folded hands and 
wings, so beautiful that they seem to have just alighted on this 
poor world, and all made of oak wood — nothing more. 

But the "event of the season" was the fetes in honor of the 
three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Rubens. The exer- 
cises had been going on for several days when I arrived, though 
greatly interfered with by rain during my stay. Bubens is the 
god of Antwerp. His bronze statue stands in the Place Verte, 
and, during my stay, I ate, drank and slept Rubens. His hand- 
some features were displayed everywhere. Triumphal arches 
were thrown across the principal streets — enormous affairs, won- 
derfully constructed of painted canvas. There were flags enough 
to have furnished forth a thousand Fourth -of- July celebrations. 
The Belgian tri-color ( black, red and yellow ) covered the entire 



120 A KANSAN ABIZOAD. 

town. Kubens photographs, Rubens cigar-cases, Rubens every- 
thing, filled the shop windows. All the churches and the mu- 
seum were thrown open that the people might see Rubens' pictures. 
I had seen several of his gorgeous court pictures in the Louvre, 
and greatly admired their richness and brilliancy. In Antwerp, 
his pictures are religious, and I failed to appreciate them. I got 
very tired of his Virgin, reproduced a score of times — a fat 
young Flemish woman, with a low, oval forehead, very large 
black eyes, an enormous bust, and a great, round, white, fat neck, 
which dominated over everything else. In every picture the pose 
was such as to give this neck the best possible showing — it was 
"neck or nothing." The sameness of the pictures is accounted 
for by the fact that Rubens took as a model his second wife, or, 
perhaps, his first — I do not remember; but at any rate, when you 
look at the Virgin Mary you are looking at Mrs. Rubens. In one 
picture Rubens himself appears as St. George. I suppose it is 
very presumptuous in me to say these things, but I believe them. 
The pictures by Van Dyke, the pupil of Rubens, appear to me 
infinitely finer. It seems to me that he was the greatest portrait 
painter who has ever lived. 

The fete, however, went on all the same, notwithstanding my 
opinion. One night we had a great historical torchlight proces- 
sion. All the costumes in the old pictures were faithfully repro- 
duced ; rank on rank marched past in the armor or the dresses of 
centuries ago ; burghers, soldiers, kings and bishops all moved by, 
the light of the flaring torches falling on moving masses of color, 
scarlet, yellow and purple. There were great cars representing 
music, art, religion, printing, and so on ; an enormous organ 
formed one of these moving structures. Rubens moved by on an 



ANTWERP AND ITS CATHEDRAL. 121 

immense chariot, while young girls with trumpets were supposed 
to sound abroad his fame. A great concourse of people witnessed 
the procession, and when the cortege turned into one of the nar- 
row, winding streets, completely filling it with the moving scene, 
the light of the torches flashing up against the high houses, the 
tossing of banners, the glitter of helmets and arms, and the " silver 
trumpets snarling," as Keats has it, made a combination of sights 
and sounds that at least one spectator will never forget. 

The next night there was a concert in the Place Verte, by twelve 
hundred singers. At the hour set all the streets around were filled 
with people, although the air was filled with a misty rain. The 
singers and orchestra occupied a platform built for the purpose. 
A line of soldiers was drawn around this space, though it seemed 
hardly necessary, so polite and good-humored was everybody. 
That night will never be forgotten by me. I have lived long 
and suffered much, but I had reached at last more than I had 
dared to hope for — I was allowed, after so many years, to hear 
some music out-of-doors, a privilege I think no one ever enjoyed 
in my own dear country. The audience was attention itself. 
The least disturbance in the rear of the crowd was met by low 
hisses of disapprobation. Every note fell on every listening ear. 
And what music it was! — at times a band of trumpets hidden in 
the trees in a distant part of the park, answered the voices, and 
at last the bells — not u Carolus" and "Maria" — but a silvery 
chime, answered the trumpets as they sang with all the children's 
voices — for boys and girls sang, too. At the close, voices, orches- 
tra, trumpets and bells repeated over after each other, a simple 
melody — a national air, and then the concert ended with hurrahs, 
the soldiers opened their ranks, and the people rushed up to con- 



122 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

gratulate the conductor and his singers — and / heard it all! This 
was the overwhelming fact — the great, indescribable surprise of 
my life. 

When the concert was over, the crowd broke up and wended 
its way, by a score of crooked streets, to the river Scheldt, where 
there were fireworks — "the bombardment of a Turkish fort" — 
and in the meantime the two bells lifted up their great voices till 
it seemed as if the earth jarred. 

I saw no more of the fete, for I left Antwerp the next evening. 
The sky was nearly overcast, save a bright silvery band where 
the sun was sinking. I looked back once more at the town, and 
there, cutting that band of bright sky across — no longer gray, but 
robed in a violet light — was the mighty spire of Notre Dame. 

The train sped away till the land, level and green before, 
seemed to fairly sink. When it was growing dark we were in 
Holland. The flat land stretched away to the level sea; nothing 
rose to break the faint sky-line save a lonely wind-mill ; and 
when the moon rose in a mist, and lights were seen in the dis- 
tance, we could not tell whether they belonged to earth, or sea, or 
sky — whether they shone in the homes of men, or in the rigging 
of some ship at anchor, or were the bright glancing of some low- 
hung star. And so we came to Flushing. 



LONDON KEVISITED. 



AT Flushing I embarked on a steamer bearing a Dutch name, 
- of which I have- forgotten half-a-dozen syllables, and so 
will not undertake to give the balance. The destination of the 
boat was Queenboro, a run of twelve hours, more or less, accord- 
ing to wind, weather and other circumstances. 

Some naval officer being asked what was the most awful thing 
about a sea-fight, said it was seeing them sprinkle the deck with 
sawdust to catch the blood, as yet unshed. I was reminded of 
this on entering the cabin of the , on seeing certain om- 
inous tin basins hanging opposite each berth. It was plain that 
the tinware was not intended for ornament, but use. 

The company was not large, the most conspicuous being a 
young Japanese coming from school on the continent, and a 
young woman of a remarkably sociable temperament, and who, 
to use a seafaring expression, was " three sheets in the wind." The 
boat soon left the pier, and considerable motion was perceptible. 
It was surprising how soon conversation turned on the state of 
the water, but nobody was afraid of seasickness ; none of the pass- 
engers had ever been seasick or ever expected to be, and there 
was a disposition to converse in a lively manner on the subject of 
the dreaded malady. The young woman aforesaid appeared at 
frequent intervals at her state-room door and laughed violently 
at the gentlemen passengers. It was observed, however, that all 
this hilarity did not materially check the rolling of the steamer, 

and soon an old woman bowed her head on the table, and wept 

(123) 



124 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

and moaned, and bewailed herself. The gentleman from the 
Orient was next affected. He stopped talking, and turned first a 
dark brown, then a deep yellow, then a light straw color, and fled 
to his berth, from whence his slanting eyes glistened in the midst 
of a countenance the color of a dirty white pocket handkerchief. 
The state-room door opened once more, a hysterical laugh was 
heard, and after that the young woman was heard but not seen. 
One by one, the passengers about the table thought it was time to 
turn in, and said they always went to bed early. One of the last 
was this writer. He remembers that he lost his interest in every- 
thing earthly, and felt no hopes, desires, emotions, ambitions or 
wants, save an overwhelming anxiety to lie down somewhere. 
The sensation was like being lowered by the heels and head first 
into a barrel of moderately warm and very dirty water. There 
was no local pain, no settled agony anywhere in particular, only 
just a spreading, all-pervading, overwhelming sick. The man who 
says that when you are seasick you should keep on deck and walk 
about, is a liar and a horse-thief. This deponent did nothing of 
the sort, nor would he to have saved the boat from instant de- 
struction. So still did he lie, that he could have been carried 
around with a show and exhibited as a mummy. The effect was 
beneficial. In an hour the sea-sickness grew ashamed of attack- 
ing a man who was down, and made no resistance, and so left; 
and after that the motion of the vessel was not disagreeable. But 
all night there were moanings and groanings all around the 
cabin, and cries of "Stew — (whoop, whoop, whoop) — ard!!" So 
passed the solemn hours away till daylight came, and stricken, 
haggard wretches began to crawl on deck, and remark with wan 
smiles, that "it was pretty rough last night." 

The run from Queenboro to London was made in the dirtiest 



LONDON REVISITED. 125 

railway car I ever saw in England, but the day was so fair that a 
little discomfort was forgotten. Our way lay through the fair 
county of Kent, in some respects one of the most beautiful of Eng- 
lish counties, and we saw acres of its famous hop fields. Of the 
towns along the way, I remember only Kochester, and that not 
because of anything connected with its history, save that it was 
the first stopping -place of Mr. Pickwick and his friends when 
they started out on their tour of observation. 

London looked natural enough, though perhaps a trifle uglier 
after Paris ; but for all that it is a difficult town to get away from, 
and I believe I could live there for six months, and take each day 
a new and interesting tour of observation. 

A day was devoted to Windsor Castle, easily and quickly 
reached by rail from London. Like most historic places in Eng- 
land, it is more interesting from past than present associations. In 
the absence of the Queen ( who is generally absent ), admission is 
obtained without difficulty, and "by the Queen's command" no 
fees or gratuities are allowed. A few of the state apartments are 
shown. They are handsome, of course, but with the furniture cov- 
ered with linen, look dreary. These royal rooms did not seem to 
me as fine as the halls of the Louvre, the people's palace, open to 
the humblest French workman every day. There is a fine collec- 
tion of portraits by Van Dyke, and a miscellaneous assortment of 
royal portraits, one of the best, I think, being of George IV, 
painted by Lawrence. Poor old George III was of course con- 
spicuous, with his low forehead, his goggle eyes and his open 
mouth. Looking at that face, one can readily imagine the august 
monarch, as depicted by Peter Pindar, wondering how the apple 
got inside the dumpling, no seam being visible. 

While walking about the state apartments, an English gen- 



126 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

tleman said to me: "You must go on top of the great tower and 
talk with the sergeant; he is as funny as your Artemus Ward." 
I believe that is the highest praise that an Englishman can confer 
on a humorist. No other American, great or small, ever made 
such an impression in London as did poor Charley Browne. He 
was a revelation. His like had never been seen before, as it 
never will be again. His jokes were made the subject of critical 
analysis in the English magazines. His "show" drew better in 
London than even in " Baldinsville ; " and to this day he is used 
as a sort of standard, and all other "funny men" are compared 
with him. This does not arise from ignorance of what is called 
"American humor" — the "nigger business" has had an estab- 
lished home in England for years ; but it arises solely from the 
honest truth that, in the matter of natural, original, perpetual 
fun, America has produced but one Artemus Ward, the only one 
of an army of our humorists who lived and died with his laurels 
green. 

But this is a digression. I took the gentleman's advice, 
ascended the tower, and found the sergeant, a big, hearty soldier, 
who had paced the tower for eighteen years. His blue eyes 
twinkled with a merry light, and he had really a great store of 
dry fun about him. He had a most interesting panorama, if that 
be the proper expression, to exhibit. Close by is a little town ; it 
is Eton, with the famous school, where many of England's greatest 
men have been educated. In the far distance is Harrow, where 
Byron was a scholar; the green spot by the gliding Thames is 
Runnymede, where Magna Charta was wrested from King John, 
whereby ( I believe) we obtained the privilege of being tried by 
twelve men who never read the newspapers, and so have never 
"formed or expressed an opinion;" a clump of houses is the vil- 



LONDON REVISITED. 127 

lage of Datchet, where the Merry Wives of Windsor served Fal- 
staff a bad trick; and the spire above the trees marks the site of 
Stoke church, where the curfew tolled the knell of parting day; 
and, concerning this, the sergeant was kind enough to tell me 
that nearly every American who came to Windsor was able to 
repeat Gray's Elegy. These are the real attractions of Windsor 
Castle. We may forget what king built this tower or that, but 
no one forgets the moment when he looked across the green coun- 
try to where "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." 

Back in London by night, an opportunity was afforded to hear 
the celebrated Spurgeon, who was to deliver a week-day evening 
address at his tabernacle, on the Surrey side. It seems a little 
odd, but a Londoner directing a stranger to this place of worship 
will tell him that it is near a famous inn in old times, bearing 
still its ancient name of the "Elephant and Castle." Going first 
to the "Elephant and Castle," we had no difficulty in finding the 
immense tabernacle. It is an excessively ugly affair outside, and 
inside the effort appears to be to make it look as unlike a church 
as possible. In shape, the interior (to use a familiar, though pos- 
sibly an irreverent illustration) is like the race track at the 
Topeka fair grounds. There are several galleries, and an im- 
mense amount of room. Although it was a week-day meeting, a 
large audience was present, and I noticed the red uniforms of 
two soldiers lighting up the sober-colored mass. The pulpit is a 
sort of small gallery. Mr. Spurgeon is a solid, heavy, muscular 
man, with a thoroughly middle-class English look. Were he a 
politician, I should take him for a popular speaker of the ad- 
vanced radical party. His discourse, I am bound to say, seemed 
to me far from striking; and I may as well add, that my observa- 
tion leads me to believe that in the matter of pulpit eloquence 



128 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

America is far in advance of the other side of the Atlantic. Mr. 
Spurgeon's sermon was a plain, matter-of-fact talk, rising nowhere 
into the sublime, or even the poetical ; but his voice is a wonder- 
ful one. He filled the great building without the slightest appar- 
ent exertion, and his lower notes were singularly musical and 
pleasing. I could, from hearing his voice, well believe all that is 
said of his powers as a speaker when circumstances call for their 
exertion. After the sermon a number of persons were baptized, 
the officiating clergyman being (I was told) a brother of Mr. 
Spurgeon's. The ordinance was conducted after the manner of 
Baptist churches in America, save that all the lady candidates 
wore white robes and caps. 

The next day, at the instance of a Liverpool printer, I visited 
the Caxton exhibition at the South Kensington Museum. There 
was here a wonderful collection of everything relating to the past 
or present of the art of printing in all its branches. Some speci- 
mens of American work were on exhibition, though nothing near 
as fine a show as could have been made. In the midst of a glass 
case of cards I noticed one of "Haight & Taylor, Ellenville, 
N. Y.;" and the names brought to my mind the recollection of 
one whose death diminished the world's too slender stock of sin- 
cere and honest men, the late K. B. Taylor, of Wyandotte. 

There was a wonderful array of old books, particularly those 
printed by Caxton himself. I looked even at the pages of the 
first book printed in England. I suppose I ought to have burst 
out in a torrent of eloquent and grateful eulogy on the "art pre- 
servative of arts," the palladium of liberty, etc., etc., etc., and 
have blessed the memory of William Caxton, but I did not. See- 
ing his work, brought him very near to me. He looked at me, in 
fact, from the open pages of his book, with the same provokingly 



LONDON REVISITED. 129 

bland, innocent, benevolent expression he wears in Maclise's pic- 
ture. It irritated me, and I felt as if, providing he could really 
"materialize," I would have addressed him thus: 

"Mr. William Caxton, you were originally a mercer, and you 
were also an embassador, and one with just the statutory amount 
of common sense would suppose that that was a sufficiently fat 
take for you, but you must needs go into the printing business. 
Now then, what for? You say that the Duchess of Burgundy 
wanted you to print the 'Recueil of the History of Troye,' and 
you did it ; yes, and Eve wanted Adam to eat the apple, and he 
did it ; and Herodius had an anxiety for the head of John the 
Baptist, and she got it; and Lady Macbeth wanted Mac. to give 
old man Duncan a fatal prod, and he did it. He never even gave 
'the old man a chance.' You didn't foresee the consequences, you 
say, when you set up your book, newspaper and plain and fancy 
job printing establishment in Westminster Abbey. You didn't 
know, now honest? You didn't think there would ever be such a 
thing as a tramping jour., did you? You didn't see the head of 
the blooming old procession that has been about three hundred 
years passing a given point? You wasn't prepared for that gay 
old cortege, that innumerable caravan, were you? It didn't 
occur to you about the 'banner,' and the very rum lot that 
were to put in their time carrying it? Your prophetic eye did 
not see the long string of red noses and sore eyes and sun-burnt 
necks and blistered heels? You never thought of the fellows 
who would sleep on the bank, and under the bank, and behind 
the stove, and down in the press-room among the greasy rags and 
wrapping-paper and strings, and also repose their old bones be- 
times in the calaboose? No, you didn't think of any of these 



130 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

things, we may well believe. You never dreamed, Bill, that some 
thousands of your fellow-creatures would put their eyes out, and 
grow old before their time, and humpbacked in the flower of 
their youth, sticking type on morning papers. You never imag- 
ined how they would all stir the fire up; how the 'old man' 
would blaspheme the foreman, and how the last named would 
make even by calling the learned and accomplished compositors 
a lot of goggle-eyed, slab-sided, knock-kneed blacksmiths. Bless 
your simple-hearted, ink-smearing old soul, nothing appears to 
have occurred to you! You didn't hear, sounding down the ages, 
anything about 'a few cords of dry wood wanted at this office 
immediately,' nor the loud and exceedingly bitter cry for ' any 
kind of country produce.' You are responsible for all this, and 
you say you didn't think! And in that connection, I may remark 
that that is what every meddling, mischief-making lunatic says. 
You didn't know the gun was loaded, and so you snapped it, and 
that is the way some fool kills somebody every day in the week. 
But you didn't think; you meant well, but you were just an idiot, 
that was all. Probably if you had thought, you would have hung 
the printing business on the dead hook; but you didn't, and it is 
now too late. The line is hair-spaced now, and it can't be helped. 
We are in the everlasting 'drag,' and are stuck for all night. 
Oh, William! William!" 

Queen Victoria, Spurgeon and William Caxton formed the 
bill of fare at this last visit to London ; from thence my way led 
into the "country," and away from the cities, into the heart of 
that rural England referred to by an English poet as having been 
made by God, while "man made the town." 



RURAL ENGLAND. 



BEFOEE taking leave of England, I traversed the counties of 
Lancaster, Chester, Salop, Warwick, Oxford, Middlesex, 
Cambridge, Huntington, Kent, Bucks, Lincoln, York, Westmore- 
land and Cumberland, and traveling leisurely, had a good oppor- 
tunity of seeing the English country, east, west, north and south. 
If I did not see the best, which most Englishmen insist is in Dev- 
onshire, I think I saw the worst, in the moors of Yorkshire, and 
plenty that was "fair to middling." 

Of the beauty of Cheshire, where I first saw sunshine and green 
grass in England, and of the comparative excellence of Shrop- 
shire, I have already spoken, and I have alluded to the poverty of 
Warwick and the country between Stratford and London. Had 
I seen only that region, I should have come away with a poor 
opinion of English groundand English farming. Fortunately, I 
went farther and fared better. 

The famous county of Kent I saw on a sunshiny morning, as I 
have before stated, in coming from Queenboro to London. It is 
a county of hills and dales, never monotonous on one hand, nor 
striking on the other. Its hop fields are its most remarkable agri- 
cultural feature. 

It was September when I left London going north, and there 
was a keen reminder of autumn in the air, and the trees had 
already begun to dull and fade ; the summer had been an uncom- 
monly wet one, even for England, and one was constantly re- 

(131) 



132 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

minded by the temperature of an American October, although the 
harvest was in progress. Keapers of a peculiarly lumbering pat- 
tern were going in some fields, and in others I saw, for the first 
time in my life, gleaners ; ragged, red-faced women, who, like 
Eugene Ware's geese and cranes, were " picking up the golden 
grains." To one who had seen ears of corn enough wasted along 
the muddy roads of Illinois to feed England a week or so, this 
gleaning business looked like the depth of poverty. To make the 
"seeming" worse, I was told that gleaning was not as profitable as 
formerly. I suppose in the old times a kind-hearted husbandman, 
with a sickle or cradle, let fall a few stalks occasionally for pity's 
sake ; but a reaping-machine has no bowels of compassion. 

It happened that this very September, when this poverty- 
stricken spectacle so impressed me, was the rich man's holiday, 
for it was the opening of the shooting season, which the imposi- 
tion of a new gun tax had made more genteel than ever. Bushes 
were stuck up in some pastures to indicate that the ground was 
reserved by Lord Somebodyorother, and that no other man, even 
with a stamped shot-gun, might blaze away therein. I saw some 
of this hunting. Four or five men moved in skirmishing order 
across a turnip field, with a boy carrying a game-bag, and popped 
away at birds which were as tame as cats. It was not nearly as 
exciting as the boy's pursuit of the ground-hog, and it lacked his 
excuse of dire necessity. 

To get back to what I know about farming. The turnip fields 
are a great English institution ; they seem to occupy the place 
filled by corn in America. The undemonstrative, cold, hard, 
solid, practical turnip is at home in England. I think it must 
have been invented there. The landscape everywhere is broken 



RURAL ENGLAND. 133 

by the pale, watery green of turnip fields, affording the greatest 
possible contrast with the waving pomp of our Indian corn, hand- 
somest of all agricultural productions. In England there is no 
corn, but there are turnips and turnips. 

In the pastures reside in ease and opulence the glory of Eng- 
land, the cattle and sheep. Coming from a country where the 
farmers prefer to raise dogs, I was greatly interested in the British 
sheep, such great, white, broad-backed creatures were they. They 
scarcely seemed of the same species as the American sheep. Per- 
haps a republican form of government is not adapted to sheep- 
raising; but certain it is, that under the British constitution, 
mutton is mutton, such as no Yankee ever dreamed of. The 
cattle in all the English counties all looked like the prize animals 
at our State fairs. 

A novel feature on the route from London to Cambridge was 
the mustard fields, which comprised many acres. The great mus- 
tard man of England is named Colman; his posters meet you 
everywhere ; he is one of the largest advertisers in the kingdom, 
and he lives in a palace. So much for smartness. 

The succession of fields and pastures is often broken by the 
parks of the nobility. A park is simply an inclosed wood, such 
as cover about half of our Eastern States. These grounds were 
originally kept for the deer they contained, but I think they are 
now maintained for the enjoyment of that seclusion which an 
Englishman associates with dignity, power, glory, self-respect, 
and so on. A man's fortune or social position in England may 
be known by the number of bolts and bars that shut him in. 
When in merely comfortable circumstances, the man has between 
him and the public a small door-yard and an iron fence, and 



134 A KANSAS ABROAD. 

keeps his front door locked. A higher grade and a longer purse 
are designated by a large yard so full of shrubbery that you cannot 
see the house, and a lock and bell to the front gate, which opens 
through a very high iron fence, suitable for a penitentiary. 
Greater grandeur manifests itself in the shape of a high stone 
wall around the premises, the top thereof bristling with broken 
glass set in mortar, to prevent any one from climbing up and 
looking over at the august owner; finally, a landed gentleman or 
nobleman incloses all the ground he can get hold of with a prison 
wall, devotes the ground to a wilderness, and lives in the middle 
of his forest, as happy as a most imperial snail in his ancestral 
shell. To get at him in this magnificent retreat, it is necessary 
to apply at the lodge gate, and to go through as many formalities 
as are requisite in order to see the Emperor of China, who is 
brother to the sun, uncle to the moon, and attorney for the 
planets generally. 

Amid the expanse of pasture, field and park are scattered the 
little villages, which are numberless, and which bear a family re- 
semblance all over the country. You see the gray, square tower 
of the village church above the trees, in whatever direction you 
turn your eyes. Along the line of the railways are dull old places, 
midway between a village and a town. They lack the life seen 
about American railway stations, for the arrival of a train is not 
much of an event where, as at Rugby Junction, for instance, four 
hundred trains pass every twenty-four hours. But of these, and 
more especially of rural villages, I shall speak further on. 

It was a bright morning when I came to Cambridge, and 
stopped off to look at the university. It is hard to tell which is 
Cambridge and which is the university. Instead of the rows of 



RURAL ENGLAND. 135 

educational barracks situated in a public square, with which we 
are familiar in America, the colleges are scattered all over town, 
and jammed in among the houses. Some are very old, and 
lighted with latticed windows, the little three-cornered panes set 
in leaden sashes; others are more modern in appearance, and 
some are even now building — or being built — for I forget which 
Mr. Kichard Grant White has decided upon. The old quadran- 
gles, the inclosures of brightest turf shining in contrast with time- 
blackened old walls, are lovely spots. Cambridge, too, is full of 
grand old trees — nobody knows how old — under which succes- 
sive generations of students have strayed. Cambridge is a sweet, 
quiet old town, and doubtless is fondly remembered by men, in 
blooming youth and wintry age, in every clime and by the shores 
of every sea. 

Once in Cambridgeshire, the country changes and spreads out 
in great plains toward the sea. I looked over the low-lying coun- 
try in the shimmering light of the afternoon, and it looked like 
that land of which one says that "it seemed always afternoon." 
Wide fields stretched away, and the sky-line was broken by white 
wind -mills, like lighthouses for the land. And through this 
smiling region, I came to St. Ives. 

I had been followed all over England by scraps of nursery 
rhymes, and St. Ives had long before been introduced to me by a 
certain verse which records that, "As I was going to St. Ives, I 
met seven wives, armed and equipped with seven cats, each with 
seven kits." In respectful remembrance of the kits, cats and 
wives, and also to deliver a letter intrusted to me, I, too, went to 
St. Ives. 

Huntingtonshire was one of those Puritan counties which sent 



136 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

out so many emigrants in the days when men departed from the 
wrath present and wrath to come, from England to America. It 
was Cromwell's county, his birthplace, and until he became a 
prominent soldier, his residence. I thought I detected in the ac- 
cent of the people some traces of that "Yankee twang" so much 
laughed at by the English now-a-days, but which is said to have 
been originally imported from England. St. Ives consists princi- 
pally of one great, wide, stony street, which is used for a cattle 
market. Along this are hitching-racks, mouldering with age, to 
which the bullocks are tied. The street slopes to a still stream 
bordered with great bulrushes. It is a soft-gliding, stealthy sort 
of river, and called, I think, the Ouse. By the banks of the 
stream, "where grow the rushes, oh," is the church of St. Ives, 
very, very old. I found the owner of my letter after a while, an 
astonishingly vigorous man of about eighty years. He skipped 
along so fast that I had trouble to keep up with him, and he told 
me all about St. Ives. He had that quickness of movement that 
they call "being spry" in New England ; and the sharp glance of 
his eye and his rapid speech, as well as the general business-like 
character and shrewdness of his remarks, made me think of the 
smart old Vermonters I knew when I was a boy. He was born in 
Norfolk; and away back in the early part of the century his 
brothers had stepped off without telling him, and had gone to 
America. He had lived fifty years in St. Ives, and had done 
well, reasonably well — pretty fair, at least. He had bought the 
house in which Cromwell once lived, and of which he showed me 
a drawing, and had built on it the site of his own house ; and he 
owned all the houses on two sides of the little square, and he 
called the locality Cromwell Place. He had stuck to business, 



RURAL ENGLAND. 137 

and, God be praised, had got along comfortably, and was a little 
ahead in fact. But he had no sons to inherit his name, though he 
was the father of several daughters, and the rest of the old stock 
having gone to America, the name of Climinson would die with 
him in England, as far as he knew. Very friendly was the old 
gentleman of St. Ives, and a prodigy of business knowledge. He 
walked with me up to the station, and told me all about farming 
in that region, giving the figures for everything ; and very aston- 
ishing figures they were, to me. Land £60 an acre at the least, 
and renting at £2 10s., and an outlay for stocking a tenant farm, 
amounting to enough to buy a princely domain in Kansas. In 
such talk passed pleasantly away two hours at the market-town of 
St. Ives, a place so out of the high road of tourists that I could 
well imagine myself the first American who had ever been there. 

From this on, the country grew wider and more level, and 
when I woke up next morning I was in Lincolnshire — at the 
venerable city of Lincoln, where people every day go back and 
forth under a Roman arch nearly or quite as old as Christianity. 
From Lincoln I wished to go into the country, to the village of 
Mareham-le-fen. It was astonishing how many people in Lin- 
coln did not know where Mareham-le-fen was — a village heaven 
knows how old, in their own county; but a gazetteer which I 
found at the Blue Anchor told me at last that I must go to Tat- 
tershall, on the railway to Boston, first, and thence across the 
country. 

Lincolnshire is a wet country, and when I first saw it, a rain 
had been falling steadily for about twenty-four hours. It is, for 
the most part, a low green plain, cut up by long, straight ditches 
and canals. It is the native county of Tennyson, and if you would 



138 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

know how it looks through all the varying year, you should read 
again the "Queen o' the May." Here I saw, all along the way, 
stirred softly by the laggard wind and the slow-falling rain, 
"The oat grass and the sword grass, and the bulrush in the pool." 

On stepping out of the little station at Tattershall, the first 
object one sees is a great brick tower, a hundred feet high, stand- 
ing in the midst of the ruins of what must have been once a very 
extensive building. The tower is a part of Tattershall castle, 
and the only ruin I ever saw in England where brick had been 
the material used in the structure. All the information that I 
could gain from the "bystanders" was, that it had been reduced 
to its present state by the cannon of Cromwell. According to 
common report, all the ruins in England are the work of either 
Henry VIII or Cromwell. Ruined castles and abbeys are a 
feature of rural England. These, especially the abbeys, are 
very numerous, and you come upon them in the most unexpected 
places. One naturally looks to find these crumbling walls in soli- 
tary valleys, but often as you fly past in the train, you catch a 
glimpse of the broken, gray arches, adorned with that "rare old 
plant," the ivy green, close beside the railroad track, while the 
telegraph wires hum all day in the wind where once rose matin, 
and even song. But to get back to Tattershall. The village is a 
mile away from the railway, which, crooked as it generally is in 
England, cannot go around to all the villages; and at the village 
it was necessary to hire a trap at the inn — the Fortescue Arms. 
Reader, if you ever visit England, stop, sometime or somewhere, 
at a village inn like the Fortescue Arms. How cosy and clean it 
looked on that rainy day ; how brilliant was the array of pewter, 
silver and earthen ware on the dresser; how brightly shone the 



RURAL ENGLAND. 139 

fire in the open grate ; how spotless as a lady's handkerchief was 
the red brick floor; how capacious and comfortable was the arm- 
chair in the "ingle nook;" how cheery was the landlord, with 
his red cheeks and his frosty whiskers. Yes, reader, if thou art 
a purse-proud and most obdurate donkey, thou wilt stop at the 
"Imperial," or the "Victoria," but if thou, being a sensible man, 
wouldst take thine ease at thine inn, thou wilt bestow thy weary 
frame at the "White Bear," or the "Pig and Whistle," or the 
"Bull and Mouth," or, perchance, at the "Elephant and Castle." 

The landlord of the Fortescue Arms soon had a two-wheeled 
vehicle at the door in charge of the "boy," a healthy kid of 
about forty-five years, and so we journeyed to Mareham-le-fen. 
The "section line" is unknown in England, and so the road does 
not run on it, but zigzags, or rather winds about after a fashion of 
its own. Each side of the way rise high and thick hedges, shut- 
ting in the view at times; and along the hedges are great trees, 
limes or elms, which lock their branches over your head; and 
you may depend that as the road looks now, so it has always 
looked, and so it always will. The "boy" was born in Tatter- 
shall, and the road which he had known all his days had never 
been changed in his time. I suppose all the crooks in it were 
there when Cromwell's hoarse guns echoed over the fens two hun- 
dred years ago. 

Mareham-le-fen is a type of an English village when undis- 
turbed by the railway — a single, crooked street, lined with one 
and two-story houses, varying from the low-roofed thatched cot- 
tage to the more modern brick house. There were the little 
shops, where everything is sold from sugar to stockings, and the 
"restored" parish church of the Establishment, originally built 



140 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

by the Saxons, and two Dissenting chapels, new and smart, and 
frequented by the bulk of the villagers ; and near by is the park 
and residence of the "gentleman" of the neighborhood — in the 
case of Mareham-le-fen, a member of the family of Stanhope, 
which once furnished a nobleman who invented a printing press, 
and also that very singular being, Lady Hester Stanhope, who 
turned Arab. 

A village on the upper waters of the Solomon or Republican 
would not have conveyed to me anything like the sense of seclu- 
sion felt at this village on the border of the fens of Lincolnshire. 
In Spreadeagleville, Kansas, we expect to be incorporated by the 
next Legislature as a city of the second class; and we can almost 
see the track-layers on the St. Augustine, Mound City & Van- 
couver Railroad: but, at Mareham-le-fen, or other rural hamlet 
in England, nothing is to be expected. As things have been, so 
they are now and ever shall be. Human hearts, however, are the 
same everywhere, and I met a kindly welcome at this out-of-the- 
way spot in a strange country. We sat by the fire and heard the 
rain outside, and, in return for talk about America, I was told all 
about the fens. In the old time the ocean came in all along the 
coast, and there was a vast country untilled by man; squatters 
lived about in the "hammocks," as they say in Florida, and killed 
moor-fowl and caught fish, and were half wild themselves. In 
time, as land became worth more, embankments were constructed, 
and when the ocean withdrew it could not get back except through 
flood-gates. And so in the course of years the dreary fen became 
pasture and wheat-fields, than which there are no finer in England. 
Mareham-le-fen is, then, Mareham-of-the-fens, or was once, for it 
is all dry ground thereabouts at present. The condition of the 



RURAL ENGLAND. 141 

country and the general wealth of the people had greatly in- 
creased with this improvement; yet withal, ever since the time 
Boston, in Massachusetts, was named in honor of old Boston, in 
Lincolnshire, people had been going thence to America. But 
surely, thought I, none have found their way back to Mareham- 
le-fen ; but I was mistaken, for there came in during the evening 
a young fellow from Potosi, Missouri, who had moreover brought 
with him a Texas cow-boy's saddle wherewith to astonish the na- 
tives. My disappointment at not being the Columbus of the vil- 
lage, did not prevent my sleeping soundly in a bed, the like of 
which as to size has not been seen in America since the Revolu- 
tion. The headboard made me think of the front of a Kansas 
clapboard court house, while the bed was the public square. 

The next stopping-place was York, a famous old place, where 
is the great minster, nearly as familiar to Americans from pic- 
tures as the capitol at Washington. I do not propose to describe 
this wonderful building, as the purpose of this letter is more par- 
ticularly to speak of the country, not the town. I may remark, 
though, in passing, that York minster is built of magnesian lime- 
stone, as is the capitol at Topeka ; and as the minster has lasted 
some four or five hundred years, so we may hope that the present 
wing of the Kansas State House will endure even till the comple- 
tion of the Insane Asylum. In the heart of York, I saw a bit of 
green grass inclosed by a high wall, which interested me. It is 
the ancient burying-ground of the Friends, long deserted, and in 
it is buried Lindley Murray. It would not take long to parse the 
last simple sentence about the old grammarian, for, with Quaker 
plainness, it only says, "that he was born, and that he died." It 
does not even mention that a generation of Americans learned 



142 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

grammar out of his little book — a generation now gone, or going; 
for of those who in so many country school houses, on so many 
drowsy afternoons, said over and over, "I love," and "you love," 
and "we love," most are gone away to another country, where 
we would fain hope that He loves. The decent body who 
showed me the place, knew nothing about the man of the old- 
time grammar, but perhaps Mr. Pontefract, the grocer at the 
corner, could tell me ; but Mr. P. knew very little about his co- 
religionist who labored so zealously to convince men that the 
personal pronoun, "you," should be used only in the second per- 
son plural. But he knew, he said, a young man from America — 
Lindley Murray Hoag. There is no getting away, you see, from 
America — or from Kansas, for that matter. 

In Yorkshire, I lived several days with the Doctor, and jour- 
neyed about, visiting, among other places, that most graceful of 
monastic ruins, Fountain's Abbey. I passed near, but did not 
visit Knaresborough, the scene of "Eugene Aram." Yorkshire 
is a very large county, and has a bolder and more impressive 
landscape than Lincolnshire. It has those "voluptuous swells," 
once spoken of by a Kansas Senator in connection with the Osage 
ceded lands, and the horizon is usually skirted by brown hills, 
where grows the heather, which, near at hand, reveals a little 
pink flower, and in the distance shows in color from purple to 
black. This applies to the country about Eipon; but in going 
north, to Scotland from Leeds, you cross Blea moor, which is the 
abomination of desolation; and it was in the moors that I saw 
the last of rural England. I saw it in sunshine in Cheshire — 
I left it in shadow in Yorkshire. 

Such are a few impressions of the English country; and the 



RURAL ENGLAND. 143 

idea that seems most vivid in closing is, that in America, Time is 
a destroying radical — in England, an easy conservative. With 
us, nothing will ever be old ; in England, few things seem young 
or new. The perpetual moisture of which travelers complain so 
much, keeps England — country England — cool and fresh and 
gently fair. It robs tower and wall and bridge of the gloss of 
newness, and gives, instead, the placid beauty of well-kept age. 
Alien though I am, born in the land of the prairie and the sun ; 
as different a country from England as can well be imagined, I 
can well understand the sentiment which an Englishman feels for 
his own, his native land. Not his country in an abstract sense ; 
not her laws, her institutions, her history, but her very earth. 
No turf is brighter and greener than the English sod, unbroken 
by the plow since history began. Larger streams there are, but 
none more beautiful than those which mirror the primroses and 
the cowslips of England. Life runs with quicker flow in the 
towns of the new world, which spring up in the sun-bright wilder- 
ness in a day; but I can well understand how amid such, the 
Englishman's heart may pine for the single winding street of his 
native village, with its straw-thatched cottages; the stone cross in 
the middle of the market-place ; the square-towered church, with 
ivy overgrown; and the honest face of the village clock, which 
told off the hours of his forefathers, and which he laid awake at 
nights and listened to as it measured his own. Such are the scenes 
which have inspired the noblest descriptive poetry in our lan- 
guage ; such are the scenes amid which have been nursed souls, 
brave, tender and true, which, going abroad into all the world, for 
this two hundred years or more, have led mankind to a higher 
and brighter destiny. 



FIRST HOURS IN SCOTLAND. 



AT Leeds I made the acquaintance of the great Midland Eail- 
- way, the most enterprising railroad corporation in Eng- 
land — the first to introduce Pullman cars, the first to do away 
with second-class carriages, making everybody ride "first" or 
"third," and at the same time improving the "third" so as to 
make it good enough for anybody — a step which has earned for 
the Midland the name of the "Eadical Company." 

It was raining heavily when we left Leeds, at 3 o'clock in the 
afternoon, and the falling rain, mingling with the rising smoke 
from the manufacturing towns we ran through, brought on a dark- 
ness that might be felt. At Keighley, the hills just back of the 
town could not be seen, and at this I felt sorry; for high up in 
those hills is the dreary village of Haworth, where that strange 
family, the Brontes, lived, suffered, achieved fame — one of them 
— and died. It was not so much on account of "Jane Eyre" that 
I wished to look, even afar off, at the scenes amid which it was 
written, but to find some explanation for "Wuthering Heights," 
as written by another sister, and which I firmly believe to be the 
most blood - chilling book in existence. I wished to know if in 
"Merrie England" there existed a region as desolate as that de- 
picted in that book. I saw nothing at Keighley, but farther on 
we came upon a "lone land," the Yorkshire "wolds," where a 
solitary, sensitive woman might easily imagine anything. High, 
woodless hills rise behind each other, strewn with patches of 

(144) 



FIRST HOURS IN SCOTLAND. 145 

brown heather, and great ledges of gray rock, patched with 
mouldering moss. Here is no sight of spire nor sound of bell. 
For miles there is not visible a furrow, and a few scattering sheep 
seem the only inhabitants. The few houses that appear in this 
solitude are shapeless structures, built of the gray rock, with an 
outside stairway, built of rock also. They stand amid the moss 
and rock and heather without even a bit of garden ground to 
break the sullen waste. Take from this poor land the vanishing 
brightness of the summer's green, fill it with drifting snow pur- 
sued by the homeless wind, and you have the scene of " Wuther- 
ing Heights." 

Approaching Westmoreland, the country becomes, so to speak, 
more "human." A depression amid the high hills, called the 
"Vale of Dent," is quite a paradise, and by the time you reach 
Carlisle you are in the midst of a level, pretty country again. 

Darkness settled soon after the train sped away from Carlisle, 
and little could be made out save that we were passing through a 
hilly country. We made a few stops, one of them being amidst 
the lights of a manufacturing town — Harwick — which the Scotch 
people called "Hyke." Somewhere about 8 o'clock came Mel- 
rose, and — bed. 

Melrose, as seen in a morning with more rain than sun, looks 
much like an English village, though not so well cared for. Near 
by rise two high, bare eminences, the Eildon hills (there are three 
of them, but two make themselves conspicuous). Somewhere in 
the vicinity is the Tweed, and down street, a few steps away from 
the station, is Melrose Abbey. 

I realized, when I stepped into the inclosure about this old 

K 



146 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

ruin, how wonderful is the spell of poetry when the magician is 
Walter Scott. Melrose is a beautiful ruin, but neither in itself 
nor in its situation does it possess the charm of Fountain's Abbey, 
near Eipon — but Walter Scott did not live in Yorkshire. Mel- 
rose being in the midst of human habitations, seems a living 
thing: it has, in fact, been used in part as a comparatively modern 
parish church; while Fountain's Abbey, standing in its lonely, 
green valley, is in harmony with our idea of an abbey — a place 
to which men, wearied with the strivings and sinnings of this 
weary world, betook themselves away from its turmoil and bustle, 
and busied themselves exclusively with prayer — perhaps. 

The custodian, a very lady-like person, said many Americans 
were visitors in July, but since then very few had been seen. 
Among the later visitors at Melrose, however, had been General 
Grant. 

We soon got through with Melrose, and prepared to visit 
Abbotsford, which is situated on the Tweed, three miles away. 
It threatened rain, and, as I proposed to walk, the question of 
" wherewithal shall we be clothed," was uppermost. I bethought 
me of a certain long shawl, for which, in journeying many hun- 
dred miles, I had never found any use. We were in a land of 
''plaids" — why not convert myself into a gentle shepherd, and 
make a plaid of this Yankee shawl? In the Highlands this 
would have been easy enough, but none of the Lowlanders to 
whom I referred knew how the real plaid was folded and fastened. 
The landlady, the chambermaid, the cook, and their male ad- 
visers, aiders and abetters, insisted that a shepherd's plaid had a 
"corner," which my shawl had not; the green-grocer next door 



FIRST HOURS IN SCOTLAND. 147 

said it was "no blate," whatever that may mean; and finally the 
shawl was put on " anyhow," and the march on Abbotsford com- 
menced, under a lowering sky. 

The country along the Tweed — which in Marmion is "Tweed's 
fair river broad and deep," (really about the size of the Grass- 
hopper at Valley Falls) — may be described as "pretty." There 
is a succession of high, grassy hills, covered at their bases with 
groves of firs and birches, generally the result of planting. The 
fine woods at Abbotsford were all planted by Sir Walter himself. 
The openings in these woods display fine country-houses, the 
residences of gentlemen, many of the owners, I presume, being 
attracted hither by the charm which the genius of Scott has 
thrown over this whole region. 

I passed through a village called Darnick — I mean spelled 
Darnick, for I despair of giving its pronunciation. I took in 
my way a stone-cutter's yard, in which was a plaster model which 
I recognized as "Old Mortality." Two men were at work on a 
colossal figure in stone, but they had nothing to say, only that the 
statue was going to "Stirlin'." Thinking this a dull shop for in- 
formation, I kept along the shady road and overtook a fresh-faced 
young Scotch woman, and an inquiry about the road led to a con- 
versation which lasted for half a mile or so. She was born, she 
said, in the neighborhood, and had never been out of it. She in- 
formed me that the stone-cutter was quite famous, and had made a 
statue of "Mr. Hogg," adding, "Maybe you've heard o' the 'Et- 
trick Shepherd?'" I assured her that the "Shepherd" and all 
the rest of the Scotch poets were well known in America. This 
interested her, for she said she had a brother in America who 
was a master stone-mason. It would be curious to know how 



148 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

many stone-masons Scotland has sent forth to all quarters of the 
globe. Then the matter of the ignorance of the Melrose people 
on the subject of plaids came up, and she said that before her 
road diverged from mine she would fix the shawl "real Scotch 
fashion." And she was as good as her word, and I had the satis- 
faction, when I reached Abbotsford, of seeing that my plaid was 
arranged about the shoulders in the same fashion as Sir Walter 
Scott's, in Chantrey's bust. This affair of the plaid was an early 
illustration of the kind-heartedness of the countrywomen of 
Burns. 

I had the road to myself after I left my Scotch female friend, 
and arrived unexpectedly at the Abbotsford gate. You go through 
passages lined with high brick walls, on which ivy has been 
trained, before you come into the formal old garden, and through 
it to the ante-room, where the guide waits. This room was hung 
around with old engravings, representing the exploits of hussars, 
possibly a relic of the time when Scott took a great interest in 
cavalry matters. After a few moments the guide — an English- 
man, I think — came in, and I made alone with him the circuit of 
the apartments open to visitors. Fortunately for me, I read last 
spring Lockhart's Life of Scott ( I borrowed it of Ward Burlin- 
game, but you can find it in the State library), and this gave Ab- 
botsford a greater interest. This great house was Scott's dream 
by day and night, and it everywhere shows the absorbing interest 
he took in it. Scotland appears to have been ransacked to furnish 
it. To me the family portraits (which are engraved in Lockhart's 
work) were most interesting. The marked likeness of Scott to 
his mother struck me more forcibly than ever before. On the 
other hand, the likeness of Scott's children to their mother was 



FIRST HOURS IN SCOTLAND. 149 

quite as apparent, the only exception being Mrs. Lockhart. The 
largest picture is young Walter Scott, in the old uniform of the 
Eleventh Hussars. He has a weak face, and the guide said that 
his brother officers, who had visited Abbotsford, did not speak 
highly of him. Mrs. Lockhart was evidently the flower of the 
family, and it seems poetic justice that Abbotsford should have 
descended in her line, and not in that of the heirs male. 

The armory is a famous room at Abbotsford. There you see 
the dirk of Rob Roy, the pistols of Napoleon, the sword of Mont- 
rose, and the pistols of the "bloody Claverhouse." There are two 
portraits of Claverhouse at Abbotsford, one of which I saw — a 
young and rather handsome face, with cold, cruel eyes. The ad- 
miration Scott expressed for this man, while acknowledging his 
wickedness, is to me unaccountable. To me, Claverhouse is one 
of the most detestable characters in history — and I am no Cove- 
nanter, either. 

The magnificence of Abbotsford, notwithstanding all I had 
read of it, astonished me. It seemed to me that many richer 
men than Scott would have hesitated before commencing such a 
costly structure. 

After I had viewed the place, I walked back to Melrose under 
the umbrella of an Englishman, a man of evidently high cultiva- 
tion, who had traveled in the United States, Kansas included, and 
who, although very quiet of manner and careful of speech, was 
the most decided Radical I ever met in the British kingdom. I 
remarked to him that I thought Scott was, up to the time of his 
pecuniary troubles, the happiest of men. To my surprise, he ex- 
pressed a different opinion. He, to be short about it, regarded 
"Walter Scott as a flunkey and a snob. He said that he ( Scott ) 



150 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

was a Tory of Tories — a man who bowed down and worshipped 
anything in the shape of a lord, who grieved that he himself was 
not born a lord, who was full of self-esteem, and who was con- 
sumed with jealousy when he failed to receive applause from 
everybody. Such a man, he argued, could never have been very 
happy. I did not indorse all this by any means, and I only men- 
tion the conversation as an illustration of the adage, "Distance 
lends enchantment to the view." It was odd, certainly, that this 
opinion should have been expressed almost on the threshold of 
Abbotsford. 

And yet, how magnificent is the power of genius ! Scott has 
thrown a wondrous light on every hill and dale and stream of his 
native land. He has robed Scotland in such guise as we read of 
in fairy tales. He has been in his grave for years, and yet the 
spell is as powerful as when first it was laid upon the world. 
Thousands of men and women alien to him in blood, in sentiment, 
come as pilgrims to a holy shrine, to gaze reverently even upon 
the clothes he wore. For me, I have forgotten many things, but 
the day I first opened the pages of "Old Mortality," the first of 
Scott's romances that fell into my childish hands, is as bright and 
fresh as yesterday. And as I read, so I expect my children will 
read, and their children, and so on to the end of days. 

The life of Scott passed within a limited space. He was born 
in Edinburgh, near by; he is buried at Dryburgh Abbey, some 
seven miles from Abbotsford. And to Dryburgh I went, in the 
afternoon. 

To go to Dryburgh from Melrose, you take the railroad to the 
next station, Newton St. Boswell's, and then, if you follow my ex- 
ample, you walk one mile and a quarter to the abbey, crossing 



FIRST HOURS IN SCOTLAND. 151 

the Tweed on a light suspension bridge. Dryburgh, unlike Mel- 
rose, is a perfect ruin. Melrose seems like a ruin arrested in the 
act of decay, but Dryburgh is old, very old, crumbling, fading. 
The ivy is most beautiful. There is an old, pointed gable stand- 
ing, of which the ivy hides everything except a Catharine win- 
dow of elegant form. Not a stone is in sight; it is all one mass of 
living green, broken only by this round window, through which 
the light, be it sunlight or moonlight, falls on shattered column 
and mossy stone and broken archway, and walls on which the 
busy fingers of relentless time are working, working still. I do 
not wonder that unlearned men are superstitious in these old 
lands. It is easy to think that in night, darkness and storm, these 
ruins are peopled with the pale ghosts of those who for centuries 
have found a resting-place beneath. 

I entered the ruined abbey entirely alone, and a sudden 
shower coming on I took refuge in a sort of arbor, and sat and 
looked through the "tangled skeins of rain." Before me rose a 
fragment of the ancient building — some arches, and above, a wall 
with some windows. This is St. Mary's aisle, and beneath the 
arches lie the mortal remains of Walter Scott; his wife; and at 
the feet of Scott, his "son-in-law, biographer and friend," John 
Gibson Lockhart. 

Soon the rain ended, and a guide, a thorough Scotchman, came 
with a party of visitors. It will be remembered that Washington 
Irving, in his story of his long-ago visit to Abbotsford, mentioned 
the ancient family of "Haig of Bemerside" — kept in their an- 
cient home by the power of a prediction that " whatever betide, 
Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside." Behind the tomb of Scott, a 
tablet in the wall bears an inscription, in Latin, stating that this 



152 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

is the burial-place of the "most ancient family" of Haig of Be- 
merside. I asked the guide if the prediction was still being ful- 
filled. He told me that the last of the Haigs, of the male line, 
died some twenty-four years ago ; that he remembered the funeral, 
and that when the body was placed in the ancient sepulcher there 
came a very loud clap of thunder, which many people believed to 
be an omen. He said that the name was now borne by a young 
man who had been adopted. The family were not rich, or, as he 
said, they "didna gather muckle gear." 

Sunset found me back in the inn at Melrose, and, on my ask- 
ing the lass who got my supper where were the cakes that had 
given Scotland the name of the "land o' cakes," she disappeared 
and returned again with veritable cakes of oatmeal — the first I 
ever saw, and which I found answered the description the girl 
gave me of Scotland, "She's little, but she's gude." And so, with 
patriotism and oatmeal, I close these hurried impressions of first 
hours in Scotland. 



THE LAND OF BURNS. 



IN previous letters I have mentioned that various old rhymes, 
nursery and otherwise, followed me all about in my travels. 
So it was when I first saw the Severn ; so it was even at Ban- 
bury ; and, going for the first time under that relic of old 
London, I thought at once of the line in "Naseby": "Their 
coward heads predestined to rot on Temple Bar." Likewise, on 
entering Scotland, certain lines that I read at school took posses- 
sion of me like a familiar spirit : 

"The memory of Burns; a name 

Which calls, when brimmed her festal cup, 
A nation's glory and her shame 
In silent sadness up." 

It so happened that the first place I visited at Edinburgh was 
the Burns monument. In the stately monument itself, is Scot- 
land's "glory" in glorifying the memory of her son; but enter 
and read the last of the letters of Burns, as they are framed and 
hung on the wall, and you will read the story of a "nation's 
shame." Never has there seemed to me anything so heart- 
breaking as that letter — the handwriting tremulous with pain 
and weakness — in which he begs the loan of ten pounds; are- 
quest, as he says, made only under the pressure of "cursed neces- 
sity," and in which he makes the pitiful confession, "The doctor 
says that low spirits is more than half my disease." Well has it 
been said that Burns did not die, but simply perished. 

But, on the other hand, go about Edinburgh — go anywhere in 
(153) 



154 A KANSAS ABROAD. 

Scotland — and you will hardly be reminded that ever a poor, 
miserable exciseman died at Dumfries. In the national art gal- 
lery, is Flaxman's fine statue of Burns; on the wall is Nasmyth's 
portrait, the one with which Americans are most familiar; and so 
it is everywhere — in cheap prints, on canvas, in almost breathing 
marble, is preserved the manly face and form of Burns, now a 
national idol. 

Of course, I went to Ayr, as I suppose every traveler does ; and 
at Ayr I entered that little district which has come to be known, 
the world over, as distinctively, "The land of Burns." It is a 
small country. Burns was never as far from home as London in 
his life, and he was born, lived, wrote, suffered and died, within 
the space of one of our Western counties. 

I reached Ayr in the decline of a September day, when the 
sun shone, but with that solemn and subdued brightness which 
seems peculiar to Scotland. I stopped at a hotel near the " Wal- 
lace tower" — not the one mentioned in Tarn O'Shanter, but a 
new one which occupies the old site, and which displays a lan- 
tern-jawed statue of Sir William Wallace, by Thorn, a self-taught 
sculptor, who afterwards, I am glad to say, wrought much better 
things. 

It is a pleasant walk of two or three miles to the birthplace 
of Burns. In his time, the way was but a country road, but now 
for the greater part of the distance it is a sort of street, lined by 
the little parks of resident gentlemen, shut out from the thorough- 
fare by those high stone walls of which I have spoken in a pre- 
vious letter as being necessary to the dignity and happiness of 
wealthy folks in this country. However, trees are not aristocratic 
or unsocial, even when growing in parks, and all along the road 



THE LAND OF BURNS. 155 

the huge beeches stretched their limbs over the walls and across 
the road, as if in protection to poor folks, "tinklers," tramps and 
dogs who might be toiling along the way. 

In time, you get from between the walls and into a more open 
country, where there are pastures and fields and "out-door" woods. 
In passing, you catch a glimpse of the shining sea. I had for- 
gotten that Ayr was a port. Burns was born in sight of the sea, 
but he rarely mentions the waves in his poetry ; he was a thor- 
ough landsman, and his genius spoke of the sod, and not of the 
wandering and inconstant billows. 

It has happened that I have seen many places of moment in 
the evening. I saw the grave of Shakspeare in the twilight, and 
it was nearly sunset when I came to the birthplace of Robert 
Burns. I saw, what thousands of my countrymen had seen before 
me, a long, low-walled, thatched cottage. Beside the open door, 
one side, was a board, on which was stated, with what seemed to 
me a stupid provincial pride, that Eobert Burns, the "Ayrshire" 
poet, was born in the house, and on the other side was this in- 
scription: "J. Boyd, licensed to sell spirits, wines and ales." 
The birthplace of Burns is, as it has been for many years, a dram- 
shop. More than sixty years ago, John Philpot Curran, a man 
whose genius was akin to that of Burns, and whose great failing 
was, alas, the same, visited the cottage, and said this of it : 

"Poor Burns! his cabin could not be passed unvisited or unwept; to its 
two little thatched rooms — kitchen and sleeping-place — a slated sort of par- 
lor is added, and it is now an ale-house. We found the keeper of it tipsy ; 
he pointed to the corner, on one side of the fire, and with a most mal- 
apropos laugh, observed, ' There is the spot where Robert Burns was born.' 
The genius and the fate of the man were already heavy on my heart, but 
the drunken laugh of the landlord gave me such a view of the rock on 
which he foundered, I could not stand it, but burst into tears." 



156 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

Matters were not in this miserable situation when I saw the 
cottage. "J. Boyd" was sober, and the place was shown me by 
a decent-looking woman. In one room a young lady was selling 
little souvenirs, photographs and the like; in the other room, 
where Burns first saw the light, a bright fire was burning, and 
several bumpkins sat smoking long pipes. They looked like 
stupid, well-meaning young men from town, who wished to go 
away and tell their friends that they had drank "a glass o' bitter" 
and smoked a pipe in the identical room where "Bobby Burns" 
was born. 

Alloway Kirk, where Tarn O'Shanter saw the devil and all, is 
standing roofless, as it has for years. The bell is still in position, 
as of yore, and all is venerable, but a very new-looking, stiff par- 
ish church stands opposite, and near by I heard the noise of a 
steam threshing machine. Progress, real and false, was there. I 
could appreciate the threshing machine, but " Old Alloway," even 
in ruins, looked more like a church to me than New Alloway. In 
the kirk-yard of the old edifice is buried the father of Burns, 
(whose name was always spelled Burness,) and the tombstone is 
the second one erected to his memory, the first having been broken 
to pieces and carried off by relic-plundering louts. One of the 
singular results of the fame of Burns has been to make this church- 
yard a fashionable place of sepulture. I believe it had fallen 
into disuse at one time, but of later years many persons of quality 
have been buried there. I saw the monument of a Mr. Broke, 
who, if I mistake not, was the son of Captain Broke who com- 
manded the Shannon in her encounter with the Chesapeake, where 
we lost our Lawrence and our navy gained an everlasting watch- 
word. 

You go on from the church and down a slope, and you come to 



THE LAND OF BURNS. 157 

the monument, and across the way there are some houses. One 
of them is an inn, and displays the arms of Burns. These, of 
course, are manufactured for the occasion, for Burns himself 
said: 

" I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which 
the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman. When at Ed- 
inburgh- last winter I got acquainted in the herald's office, and looking 
through that granary of honors I there found almost every name in the 
kingdom; but for me — 

1 My ancient but ignoble blood 
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood.' 

Gules, Purpure, Argent, &c, quite disowned me." 

The monument is a very elaborate and costly affair. Its erec- 
tion was the result of a meeting held at Ayr, attended by but two 
persons, one of whom was a Mr. Boswell, of the family who fur- 
nished the biographer of Dr. Johnson. The monument is situated 
in a garden filled with dahlias and other showy foreign flowers. I 
would have built this monument where grows only the green 
grass, the thistle, that " symbol dear " that Burns turned aside the 
plow to spare, and here and there some "gowans fine." 

from the monument you see the bridge crossed by O'Shanter 
is flight, and where the gray mare was curtailed. Douglas 
Graham, the original of " Tarn," is buried not many miles away, 
and on his tombstone is sculptured his mare, sorrowful and tail- 
less. 

It is not without a little thrill that one hears that the brown 
stream brawling close by among the trees, is the " bonnie Doon." 

The lamps were lit in the streets when I got back to Ayr, 
and after supper I went out and stood on the " auld brig." It is 
indeed very old. The balustrade is worn away as if by the hands 
that have rested on it during so many centuries. It was a dim, 



158 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

moonlit night ; the river shone, but it was with a cold and sullen 
gleam. A chill wind crept down toward the sea. It was a ghostly 
place, and made one think of the fate of the man who had 
made it immortal. He saved others, himself he could not save. 
But the words he made the "auld brig" speak have turned out a 
prophecy. "I'll be a brig when ye're a shapeless cairn," said the 
"auld brig" to the new one, and it is even so: the new bridge has 
partially fallen, and has been condemned; the "auld brig," which 
Burns evidently loved the most, still stands for the benefit of foot 
passengers ; stands fast, not only in fair weather, but stands when 
"Auld Ayr is just one lengthened, tumbling sea." 

I saw Ayr by day and night, and it struck me unpleasantly. 
Too many people of the poorer sort were drunk on the streets. 
Possibly if they had been hilariously inebriated, I would have 
liked them better; but these poor creatures were not "o'er all the 
ills of life victorious," but simply dirty, disheveled, maudlin, des- 
olately drunk. The old town looked poverty-stricken ; the new, 
stiff, and — I use the word because I can think of no other — 
hypocritical. I daresay Ayr is a good town enough ; Burns said 
it was famous for "honest men and bonnie lasses;" but as to the 
first, I had not time to make their acquaintance, and as to the 
last, they certainly were not on the streets at the time of my visit. 
It is but justice to say, that the only citizen of the town I had any 
considerable talk with (the town clerk), was a civil-spoken and 
intelligent gentleman. He spoke of a fact that I have often no- 
ticed, that Burns is a favorite with men who know no other poet. 
He told me that James Baird, an immensely wealthy iron-master 
of the vicinity, not long since deceased — a man supposed to be 
entirely devoted to business, and to know nothing else — once 



THE LAND OF BURNS. 159 

astonished and electrified a company by repeating Tarn O'Shanter 
from beginning to end. 

In going by rail from Ayr to Dumfries, you pass through a 
country covered all over, I may say, by the poetry of Burns. 
These "banks and braes and woods around" all echo still his 
verses. Little streams which but for him had never been heard 
of, are now in men's mouths as commonly as the Mississippi or 
the Amazon or the Ganges. Scotland has been happy in this, 
that her rockiest hillsides have been made famous by the pen of 
genius. Her humblest scenes have been ennobled ; and what is 
stranger and greater still, her lowliest people have been made the 
objects of the world's sympathy. A poor dairymaid will live for- 
ever as "Highland Mary," and the world will never forget the 
story of humble Helen Walker, the "Jeanie Deans" of Scott's 
most touching story. The route I have spoken of leads through 
Mauchline, near which Burns lived several years, and passes near 
Tarbolton. You are scarcely ever out of sight of the waters of 
the Nith, or some other of the winding streams along which the 
poet wandered, and you pass in sight of Drumlanrig Castle, once 
the property of a Duke of Queensberry, for whom Burns had an 
especial dislike. A visit to this castle delayed me a day on my 
way to Dumfries. 

Sunshine does wonders in Scotland, but it could not brighten 
Dumfries, where I passed an hour. There may be a clean street 
in Dumfries, but I did not see it ; and, on this occasion, misery 
was added to uncleanliness. It was the day preceding what is 
called the "Kood Fair," and all the wretchedness of the surround- 
ing country had collected at Dumfries. All the hoarse-voiced 
ballad-singers, the one-legged pipers and blind fiddlers in Scot- 



160 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

land had apparently gathered in. I never saw together before 
such a number of blind people. I hurried through this mass of 
mendicant misery, to the churchyard, where is located the monu- 
ment of Burns. It is a dome, supported by pillars, and they have 
put in glass till it looks like a great lantern. You can flatten your 
nose against the glass for nothing, or can pay threepence for 
going in. How Burns would have despised all this, could he 
have foreseen it! 

I had intended to stay at Dumfries some hours. I was glad to 
leave it by the first train, and did not feel relieved until I got 
to where I could see for myself that "Maxwelton braes are 
bonnie." 

Scotland has changed in many things since the days of Burns. 
The high farming of our day was something unknown when he 
followed the plow ; for, as I noticed at Kirk Alloway, the thresh- 
ing machine has taken the place of the "weary flingintree," yet 
for all that, a copy of Burns' s poems may be taken for a guide- 
book of the region in which he lived. One could, by taking 
isolated lines and putting them together, write a description of 
Ayrshire. You meet a witness to the faithfulness of Burns's 
descriptions very often in the country: I speak of the Scotch 
collie, or shepherd dog, the most kindly and useful dog in the 
world, with an eye like a woman's. He it is that speaks for the 
poor, in the dialogue of the " Twa Dogs." You recognize him by 

— "His towzie back, 
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black ; 
His saucy tail, wi' upward curl, 
Hangs o'er his hurdies wi' a swirl." 

That, especially the last two lines, is as natural as life. It takes 
a true poet to adorn a tale in that manner. 



THE LAND OF BURNS. 161 

I commenced with a sorrowful verse about Burns; if I write 
on, I shall close with yet more sorrowful prose. When you visit 
the localities which will be forever associated with his name, you 
see plainer than ever the man, with all his gifts and failings, his 
sinnings and repentings, his high resolves and miserable defec- 
tions, his greatness and his weakness. His faults were such as 
cannot be glossed over, any more than his genius can be denied — 
and he was so imprudent. Until within a comparatively recent 
period, his memory has been contemned by a large body of the 
clergy in Scotland, and by many religious people, not so much, I 
am fain to believe, because he got drunk, or because he was, as an 
old Scotch woman said to me in Edinburgh, "the father o' chance 
children," as because he wrote slang about a lot of country clergy- 
men and elders, who ought never to have been heard of outside 
of their own parishes; and yet compilers of his poems have con- 
tinually stained his fame ever since by preserving this pot-house 
talk about the squabbles of a kirk session. Burns, like most of 
us, knew the right and yet pursued the wrong, and fearfully he 
atoned for it. The author of the finest religious poem I know, 
"The Cotter's Saturday Night;" the giver of the best piece of 
advice possible, the "Epistle to a Young Friend;" and the enun- 
ciator of the world's political creed in the golden days that are 
coming, in "A man's a man for a' that," perished at the age of 
thirty-seven, a poor, broken, hopeless man. 

I have an idea that, had Burns, with his talents not only for 
poetical but prose composition, his liberal opinions, his courage 
and his wit, been born in America, he would have found his way 
into the field of journalism, where he would have filled a place 
like that occupied so many years by George D. Prentice, and that 



162 A KANSAS ABROAD. 

he would have lived to be an old and prosperous man. But had 
this been his career, he would have been /forgotten at his death, 
for we remember nobody. But it is all done, and well done, now. 
The good he did lives after him ; his errors have been forgiven, 
and his songs remain to be "the property and solace of man- 
kind." 



MEMORIES OF SCOTLAND. 



IT is in Scotland, I think, that Mr. Lemuel Gulliver might 
have found his patriot, who, by causing two spears of grass 
to grow where one did before, confers more essential service on 
his country than the "whole race of politicians put together." 
Scotch thrift, triumphant over all sorts of obstacles in all parts 
of the world, has achieved its greatest triumph at home. The 
Scotchman drives a great bargain with Dame Nature herself, and 
forces her to give auld Scotia many things not laid down in her 
original programme. The largest grapes I ever saw were not in 
France, the land of grapes, but in Scotland, the land of oats. 
They were raised under glass, of course, and it must be confessed 
that grapes do not form the principal article of diet of poor peo- 
ple in Scotland; but the great thing is, that grapes should be 
made to grow in Scotland under any circumstances. 

Forest-tree planting, which, in the United States, has scarcely 
got beyond the point of oral and newspaper discussion — what 
may be termed the wind-and-ink stage — is an accomplished fact, 
an achieved succeas in Scotland. Hillsides, which at the begin- 
ning of the present century were as bare as the back of your 
hand, are now covered with beautiful belts of timber. The little 
trees that Sir Walter Scott tended when he went to live at 
Abbottsford, are now great trees, bright and ever green, like the 
planter's fame. A certain Duke of Queensberry cut down the 
woods of his estate of Drumlanrig, and was poetically cursed 

(163) 



164 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

therefor by Burns, yet now no traces of the ravaging ax can be 
seen. The Duke and Burns are gone; but trees care nothing for 
us creatures of a day. Even the grass which we trample on, 
creeps back when we are still, to give us kindly covering at last. 

There is no natural reason why anything but thistles should 
grow in Scotland ; for not only is the sky cold, and the soil as thin 
as a hypocrite's prayer, but the sea, which loves not vegetation, 
comes in everywhere in bays and friths, so that the salt wind 
blows where it lists ; and yet those are fine fields one sees in Tevi- 
otdale. I saw little better in England. 

Scotch scenery, however, has never, even in the Lowlands, the 
happy look that one sees in England. It seems as if there was a 
snow-bank somewhere that chilled the air betimes. The land- 
scape is always framed with high hills, on the tops of which the 
patches of heather lie like shadows. I should think that in the 
winter time the fierce, hungry wind, pursuing the snow over the 
bare slopes, would make journeying over these hills a dreary, if 
not a dangerous, business. The shepherd, following his toilsome 
trade amid the drifting snows, is a common figure in Scotch poetry 
and story. 

The streams of Scotland are very different from the placid, 
rush-bordered, pond-like English streams. The Scotch river is a 
free, brown stream, that roars and rumbles and rushes along. 
Such is the Doon ; such is the Tweed for many a mile ; such is 
the Water of Fleet, the most charming of the minor streams 
I saw. 

Scotch towns are far from pretty. They are built of stone, and 
look stiff and ugly and awkward, and the attempts at magnifi- 
cence are not a success. They remind one of a lout in his Sunday 



MEMORIES OF SCOTLAND. 165 

clothes. I do not know why the word "rawboned" should be 
applied to a town, but it is the only word I can think of that con- 
veys to my own mind the proper idea of a Scotch town. Melrose, 
Jedburgh, Kelso, Ayr, Dumfries, all looked alike to me. The 
same wide, cobble-paved streets; the same stiff stone houses and 
Presbyterian churches ; and the same stiff-legged statue of some 
hard-headed Scotch soldier, who smote the heathen hip and 
thigh, in India and elsewhere. These old places are relieved 
sometimes by the presence of something much older, as at Kelso, 
where there are the ruinSj huge and square, of a very fine old 
abbey, rising, ivy-covered, in the midst of the town; and at Kirk- 
cudbright, where there is an old castle, which once belonged, I 
believe, to the McLellans. 

To the ugliness of the towns there is one exception, certainly — 
Edinburgh — which town has not its like in the world. 

I lived a week in Edinburgh, and walked every day with 
McCarty, a Cork man, whose acquaintance I formed during my 
first day in town. A jewel was McCarty — the best-natured, the 
wittiest, and by far the most learned of all the McCartys. He 
knew half-a-dozen modern languages. You should have heard 
him recite the "Bells of Shandon" in Italian, giving that some- 
what effeminate language the advantage of a fine brogue, or " Go 
where Glory waits Thee," in French. Irish history, poetry and 
romance he knew by heart. It was fine to hear him recite the 
remarks of Curran to Lord Avonmore, in Judge Johnson's case ; 
and one day he got to talking about French history, and it was 
very affecting, indeed it was, to hear him describe his feelings on 
looking at the slipper of Marie Antoinette. "I thought," said 
McCarty, "how that little satin slipper felt the last thrill of her 
poor body." 



166 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

But McCarty is not Edinburgh, though much mixed with all 
my recollections of the town. It was with him that I went up 
the winding street to the castle, and looked at those fine fellows, 
the 78th Highlanders, who garrison it ; with him I looked at the 
big, ugly old gun, Mons Meg ; and with him I leaned over the 
battlement, and looked at the green park that lies at the foot of 
the crags, and beyond at the New Town, and the blue, shining 
waters of the Frith of Forth. One dim day we went to Holy- 
rood together, and wandered through the bare, dismal rooms 
where the cowardly, brutal murder of Kizzio was perpetrated. I 
wonder Queen Mary did not go mad in such a pfctce, and sur- 
rounded by such a people. It was McCarty who went with me 
to Greyfriars churchyard, where is the holy shrine of the Cove- 
nanters. It is a black slab, set in the gray wall, and surrounded 
by clambering vines of a hard, stiff, thorny nature, not unlike 
that of the Covenanters themselves, who stood at bay against the 
wicked Claverhouse and his dragoons at Drumclog. There is a 
long inscription in verse commemorating the virtues, sufferings 
and death of the eighteen thousand martyrs of the Covenant. 
Two old women from Glasgow stood by while I read aloud the 
inscription, and one of the women wept. Then the four of us 
wandered about in the churchyard, and read the inscriptions ; 
and coming upon the tomb of the family of Dalzell, one of the 
women told me a fearful story of the last moments of one Gen- 
eral Dalzell, who was a bloody persecutor, and was himself tor- 
mented before the time. It was like hearing a tale from Howie's 
"Scots Worthies." But times change. This old woman, it is 
true, kept her lamp trimmed and burning with the old-fash- 
ioned oil ; but going on Sunday to Greyfriars Kirk, expecting 
to receive more of the same kind of illumination, I was aston- 



MEMORIES OF SCOTLAND. 167 

ished, not to say shocked. Service was read from a book; the 
minister preached about his travels on the Continent, instead of 
the pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem ; there was a pipe-organ, 
and the leading soprano, whose face did not betray any deep 
consciousness of personal guilt, threw back her bonnet and sang 
with divers trills and flourishes, "Create in me a clean heart, 
and renew a right spirit within me." 

But I am in a fair way to add another volume to the books 
that have been written about Edinburgh. What a queer place it 
is, to be sure, with its two towns — the old and the new ; its heights 
and its depths ; its broad squares and its narrow streets ; its won- 
derful high houses, such as we dream of when we are sick unto 
death ; houses which we fear are about to fall on us, or we are to 
fall from. Edinburgh, with its street-sounds, which are all its 
own — the drone of the bagpipes; the old Jacobite songs, sung 
first by gallant men and lovely women who have been but dust 
for a hundred years. Edinburgh, with its memories, dark and 
bright — crusted with the blood of murder — radiant with the 
light of love or heroism. Edinburgh, where the pale face of 
Queen Mary looks out at the narrow window of the high tower; 
where the Heart of Mid-Lothian looks up at you from the side- 
walk. What town is like Edinburgh : the strange, the beautiful, 
the indescribable? 

Of Ayr, my next stopping-place, I have already spoken ; and 
it does not matter how or why I went from Ayr to Kirkcud- 
bright, and thence seven miles out among the sheep farms of the 
parish of Borgue. It is sufficient that I went there. 

A white stone cottage in the midst of green, broken pastures ; 
all in hillocks, and diversified by clumps of low, ragged bushes, 
which the people call "whins;" and this cottage the habitation of 



168 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

a shepherd's family : this was what I went out into the Scotch 
wilderness "for to see," and I was content. The frith of Sol way 
was at our back door, and the weather was fine for Scotland, and 
it was enough. All the coast is full of cliffs, and the cliffs are 
full of caves; and sometimes little Katie and I climbed down to 
the caves, and peered therein, and sometimes we were content to 
look over the edges of the cliffs, and watch the brown sea-weed 
swinging, in its lazy way, in the still, green water. There are 
stories and stories about these caves; and Scott has used one of 
them in Guy Mannering. On the landward side, we walked 
about the farms, where the pastures are full of the huge, black, 
hornless Galloway cattle; and went to the village of Borgue r 
which is a small affair, consisting of two churches, and the 
manse, and the school house, and the "store," kept by a young 
fellow who was born in America, and so will be called "Yan- 
kee" to the end of his days. But America is no unknown country * 
One of the light-house keepers at Little Koss told me he was a 
printer, and had worked in Buffalo, New York; and from this- 
cheese-making country young Scotchmen go to the United States, 
to superintend cheese factories in the summer, and come back to 
Scotland in the winter. 

So passed, in wandering about the shore and hill and dale, the 
peaceful days ; every hour was brightened by humble but hearty 
hospitality ; every night the fire shone bright, and the songs of one 
world were sung and the stories of two worlds were told ; here 
battles were recounted, from Bannockburn to Gettysburg. So 
passed these last days in Scotland, and so they will linger in 
memory like the breathing of the gentle wind, the plashing of 
the pleased and solaced wave. 



A GLIMPSE OF ULSTER. 



"How is old Ireland ? — and how does she stand?" — Napper Tandy. 

THE maxim that "half a loaf is better than no bread," has 
been repeated so often that mankind has come generally 
to believe it; but in the case of Ireland, I was obliged to "dilute" 
the maxim by one-half, since my brief travels were confined to 
Ulster alone, and Leinster, Munster and Connaught, three-fourths 
of Ireland, were left untouched. 

There are many ways of getting to Ireland, but the one 
selected by myself was, though perhaps the shortest in use, not 
the most frequented. It was from Stranraer to Lame. The gov- 
ernment years ago expended a great deal of money at Portpatrick, 
which is the point on the Scotch coast nearest to Ireland, but, like 
many internal-improvement schemes in America, the port of Port- 
patrick miscarried, and the business was transferred to Stranraer, 
at the head of Loch Ryan. From here the boats run to Larne, 
whence it is a brief trip by rail to Belfast, the " Liverpool of Ire- 
land." 

Stranraer is a dirty town, more Irish, I should judge, than 
Scotch, at least the street music appeared to be entirely of the 
shillelah and jig order. A few fishing vessels lay in the harbor, 
the only steamer being the Larne boat. Altogether Stranraer is 
a slow town — as slow as Artemus Ward's town in Indiana, where 
the plank road came in three times a week. 

The passage from Scotland to Ireland was effected on a bright 
(169) 



170 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

day in about three hours. My traveling companions were a gen- 
tleman and his wife from Girvan, and much talk was indulged in 
about Scotland and the Scotch, more especially the Highlanders. 
Eeference was made to the popular belief that a curse has followed 
the descendants of the authors and perpetrators of the massacre 
of Glencoe, and I was told, with every appearance of sincerity, 
that the family of Stair, who reside near Stranraer, are to this 
day regarded with aversion, their ancestor having ordered that 
frightful butchery. This, considering that Stranraer is far distant 
from the scene of the crime, and that two centuries have elapsed 
since Lord Stair planned the extermination of the Macdonalds, is 
certainly treasuring up wrong with a vengeance. My informant, 
however, appeared to entertain no doubt as to the existence of the 
feeling and its cause. 

The coast of Ireland must, I believe, be one of the most uni- 
formly beautiful in the world. It certainly looked very bright to 
me when first I saw it in the south, and it was just as bright when 
I came in sight of it in the north. The expression "Gem of the 
Sea" is certainly not a great exaggeration when applied to Ire- 
land as seen from the sea. 

Lame is a small but well-built town, but nobody stops there, 
it being merely a sort of side-door to Belfast. The last-named 
town is exceedingly well built, and the use of red brick, as in 
America, relieved the place of the heavy look of English and 
Scotch cities of the same class. There was little in the town that 
brought up the popular idea of Ireland, except the enormous 
number of barefooted girls one met in the streets. I do not be- 
lieve I ever saw the female foot in its natural form (except in the 
case of two very young girl babies in whom I had an interest), 



A GLIMPSE OF ULSTER. 171 

until I went to Ireland. Here are plenty of feet that have ap- 
parently never known the weight of a shoe, and this illustrated 
the great doctrine of compensation. The poor Irish people have 
suffered from war, pestilence and politicians, but heaven has 
mercifully preserved them from corns. 

Belfast interested me as the capital of the Scotch-Irish, a race 
of people who have left a deep mark on the United States. It 
was odd, so far from home, to be constantly reminded of Western 
Pennsylvania. Here were the same names — Antrim, Coleraine, 
Sligo, and so on — and among the people are to be found the 
same cast of features and the same accent, to say nothing of the 
same Presbyterianism, that have existed in the country of which 
Pittsburgh may be said to be the capital for I do not know how 
long. Dwelling with these people is a very considerable Catholic 
population, and the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne was 
formerly celebrated by annual revivals of the case of Fist vs. 
Skull, but I believe the fighting has lacked somewhat in live- 
liness and interest of late years. I suppose the row in New York, 
a few years since, over the same question, so far eclipsed the Irish 
efforts that they were suspended. Thus does American enterprise 
everywhere assert itself. At any rate, the only trace of the ancient 
animosity I saw in Ulster was the sentence, "No Pope here," 
scribbled on the ceiling of a railroad car. 

I looked about Belfast four or five hours, and was greatly 
pleased with the public buildings, evidently planned by a person 
greatly needed by the Government of the United States, viz., an 
architect. Belfast has a plentiful supply of churches, some of 
them extremely handsome. There may have been monuments to 
Nelson and Wellington, but, fortunately, if they existed, I failed 
to see them, and enjoyed my meals better in consequence. 



172 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

In journeying from Belfast, I traveled with a car full of men 
who might have been taken for residents of Blair county, Penn- 
sylvania. One sandy-bearded young fellow devoted himself to 
my instruction, but the amount of the remarkably robust Irish 
whisky (which grows very large in Ulster) which he had con- 
cealed about his person before leaving Belfast, somewhat inter- 
fered with the clearness, order and lucidity of his remarks. I 
gathered from him, however, that Ulster was the finest country in 
the world, and that County Antrim was the finest part of Ulster. 
This somewhat surprised me, for I had been led to believe, from 
the statements of my old friend, Judge Christian, of Cowley, that 
the Irish garden of Eden was located in County Down. 

I regret that the scene before me did not justify my compan- 
ion's encomiums. While Ireland — Ulster, at least — is not the 
"most distressful country that ever yet was seen" — that spot be- 
ing located in the Ozark Mountains — it is undoubtedly far from 
rivaling England or even Scotland. It struck me as a naturally 
good country, which had suffered from several centuries of care- 
lessness. The land was cut up into numberless little patches, of 
every conceivable size and shape, divided by hedges; and these, 
unlike the almost painful trimness of English hedges, looked 
broken and unkempt. I have seldom seen worse in Kansas, and 
this is saying a good deal. The turf was a brilliant green, but it 
was a sort of wild turf, and the frequent pools dug in the fields 
for the purpose of soaking flax, the water gleaming dimly in the 
light of the sinking sun, conveyed a desolate feeling. Bogs were 
passed at frequent intervals, where the peat, black as ink, had 
been excavated to a considerable depth, and was piled in great 
stacks here and there. There were potato-fields, of course, the 
potatoes being planted in a fashion new to me, in what looked 



A GLIMPSE OF ULSTER. 173 

like long, narrow garden beds, separated by trenches, and in these 
trenches there were rows of cabbages. The grain harvest was in 
progress, and the majority of the laborers appeared to be women 
and girls. The pastures were small, and filled with cattle which 
did not appear to have the least trace of blood, as unlike the 
English and Scotch cattle as possible. Nevertheless, the Irish cat- 
tle trade is important, and the boats which run to Liverpool are 
always full of these four-footed "exiles of Erin." 

The towns Antrim, Ballymena, Coleraine, and several smaller 
places, appeared more thrifty than the country about them. The 
linen industry is very considerable, and builds up the towns. 
There are few prettier little sights than a bleaching-green, with 
the long strips of white linen extended line after line on the bril- 
liant turf. All these towns have a history, a part of the long and 
troublous story of Ireland. At Antrim was fought one of the 
most destructive engagements in the rebellion of 1798 ; but it's a 
long story, and everybody is referred to Mr. Froude and Father 
Burke, who, from the two extremes of the "Irish Question," have 
battled over it with rare learning, ingenuity and force. 

The people in the cars seemed of one sort — simply Scotch- 
Irish — sturdy, Presbyterian sort of men, with one exception. At 
one station, there hopped into the car a man who actually seemed 
of another race. His long hair hanging on his shoulders, his 
sharp black eyes, his thin features, the complicated mass of rags 
that extended from his neck to his bare feet, fitted him to go on 
the stage and play the " Shaughraun " without any further "mak- 
ing up." If he spoke English, it was after a fashion unintelli- 
gible to me. His movements were as agile as those of a cat, and 
as he rode from one station to the next, I had abundant occupa- 



174 A KANSAS ABROAD. 

tion in studying him. Except in Boucicault's plays, I never saw 
his like. 

At last hedges, bleaching -greens, potato - fields, peat -stacks, 
bogs and the "Shaughraun" were, if not out of mind, out of 
sight; and I found "rest and a light, and food and fire" at Cole- 
man's Hotel in Portrush. The fire was welcome in this northern- 
most spot of north Ireland; and as ruddy as the firelight and 
stalwart as a "bold dragoon" was my fireside companion, Mr. 
Anthony O'Neil, who is connected with all my memories of the 
place and its vicinity. Mr. O'Neil, a Dublin man by birth, and a 
town councillor of his native place, belonged, as may be sup- 
posed, to the old religion and the old race. His recollection 
went back to the days of O'Connell and "repeal;" and very 
interesting were his reminiscences of the great agitator, who, in 
my judgment, was possessed of more practical sense than all the 
rest of the Irish politicians before or since. 

Morning dawned on Portrush with a wind and sky that beto- 
kened rain; but the councillor was up early, and we inspected 
Portrush quite thoroughly before breakfast. It is a little town 
built on a sandy shelf above a very beautiful beach. In a waste 
spot of ground is the one monument of the place, commemorat- 
ing the life and services of Dr. Adam Clarke, the commentator, 
who was "brought up," the inscription says, at Portstewart, a 
little town a few miles away. Most of the houses of Portrush are 
let for the accommodation of people who come to the place to 
bathe; to enjoy the sea-water, to wade in it and swim in it, and 
soak in it, and even as my friend observed, to "ile their hair wid 
it." We had no use for any brine, and accordingly after break- 
fast we set out for the Giant's Causeway in a jaunting car. 



A GLIMPSE OF ULSTER. 175 

I do not know who invented the jaunting car, but he was an 
original genius, and succeeded in constructing a vehicle which 
looks unlike anything else that runs on wheels. At the first 
glance a jaunting car seems to be all springs; but really accom- 
modates four persons beside the driver; and between the seats 
whereon the passengers sit, or rather cling, or perch, is a sort of 
box, or chest, which may be made to hold jugs and other bag- 
gage. It was in a jaunting car, then, that we went to the Cause- 
way, along the coast road; and a fine road it is. And all along 
on one side was the sea, whereof an Irish poet sings — 

"The breakers lap and curl below; 
And sea-birds poised on wings of snow 
Whirl fitfully in-shore and fro, 

And soar, and dip, and skim. 
To east and north, a waste of waves, 
From Antrim's coast of cliffs and caves, 

Blends with the blue sky's rim." 

The cliffs are frequently of snowy white limestone, and the 
constant hammer and chisel of those steady workers — the 
waves — has wrought in them arches of wondrous grace and 
beauty, through which the waves run to and fro continually, 
as if looking after their work. The beach forms a succession of 
amphitheaters all the way to the Causeway, as if the shore-line 
was like that of an army driven back in places and holding its 
original position at others. 

The country along the coast, though much better cultivated 
than the country elsewhere, is not thickly settled. We passed 
through but one village — Bush Mills — famous for its whisky in 
a country which certainly knows good whisky when it is visible. 
Here we took up a guide, and thereby saved ourselves from being 



176 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

torn to pieces by the gang of guides who lie in wait for travelers 
at the Causeway. 

At last we came to another Coleman's Hotel, and after waiting 
an hour or so for the rain to let up, started to look at an object I 
had speculated about ever since I first saw its picture in the 
geography — the Giant's Causeway. 

We clambered down a steep bluff to the water's edge, and got 
into a boat rowed by four stout men, who were none too many, 
for it is a restless sea that has been trying for ages to beat down 
these cliffs. We rose, and fell, and swung, with the great swirling 
waves, which charged in a mass of white and green up to the top 
of the low, black rocks, and then came rushing and roaring back, 
quite in a foam with the exertion, only to try it again and again 
— the old play of rock and wave, old as time. The men rested on 
their oars in the midst of one of the amphitheaters I have men- 
tioned, and the guide called our attention to the surrounding 
scenery. There was nothing there except a gray cliff, and the 
water at its feet. One might as well look at Calhoun's bluff. 
But we went farther, into another little foaming bay, and looked 
again, and there was, not the bare, common cliff, but two rows of 
columns, thousands of columns side by side, yet each distinct. In 
one place, it seemed as if the weight placed on the columns had 
been too heavy for them, and they were bent, not broken — all 
still side by side, twisted over in the same direction. This was 
better, but not yet the Giant's Causeway. Then we came to the 
black opening of great caves running far under the cliffs, and 
the boat shot into them. Wondrous caves were these, whereof the 
floor is the green and shifting sea. As regularly as beats the 
pulse in one's wrist, the wave came rushing in, and seemed as if 



A GLIMPSE OF ULSTER. 177 

it would shut the boat in with a wall of water, but then seemed 
to change its purpose, sank, and glided under us, rose after it had 
passed, and went on to the end of the cave to hurl itself against 
the wall in foam and thunder. The ceiling of the cave was a 
mass of black — they say it was lava once, and rushed and hissed 
and burned — but this I do not know; it is cold enough now. 
Next to the water-line was a vein of some mineral of a delicate 
pink, which blended with the water all around. The guide kept 
up a jargon about "haymetite," and "conghlomerate," and "ox- 
hide," that he did not understand, to say nothing of his auditors. 
I would rather he had dropped geology and told us some lies 
about the giant who built the Causeway. And after all this, we 
rowed to the Causeway itself. It did not realize my expectations 
in the matter of height above the water, but it is a growing 
wonder. 

I suppose all my readers are familiar with the machine called 
a pile-driver, and if so, they will please keep it in mind while I 
try to explain the Giant's Causeway. Suppose a party started to 
build a bridge, or rather, road, of piles across an arm of the sea. 
He drives several hundred feet from the shore out before he gives 
up the undertaking. Those nearest the shore are the highest, 
and thence the piles grow shorter as the work advances into the 
water, till the last are almost even with the surface. Now sup- 
pose he has driven forty thousand of these piles ; suppose, farther, 
that all the piles before being driven were dressed, so that their 
sides matched ; suppose that some had five, some six, some* seven, 
some eight sides; but out of the forty thousand, only one had 
three sides, and only three had nine sides. Suppose that, after 
all these hewed, jointed and matched piles had been driven, they 



178 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

were instantaneously, separately and collectively turned into 
stone — and you have the Giant's Causeway. The piles are, 
moreover, all of the same kind of stone. If you would like to 
make one of the piles or columns, I can give you the recipe : Take 
twenty-five parts of clay, twenty-five parts of lime, twenty-five 
parts of iron, and twenty-five parts of flinty earth, and you have 
the ingredients — they "can be procured at any drug store." You 
will understand that the iron is used for coloring matter. The 
columns are about the hue of dark iron ore. 

Of course we landed at the Causeway, and walked all about 
over the tops of the pillars, and saw the four eccentric ones that 
stood out from the others on the question of shape. We were 
beset by two old women, who followed us about, telling, in a most 
lamentable voice, a story of poverty, to which their countrymen 
responded only with a sarcastic, "Oh, murther!" However, I 
invested a coin of the realm in photographs and benedictions, the 
latter of which I regarded as having been bought at a very hand- 
some figure. Laden with blessings, photographs and general in- 
formation, we climbed the bluff again and wended our way back 
to Portrush, stopping on the way to look at the ruins of Dunluce 
Castle — a mass of broken walls standing on a crag that goes down 
sheer to the water — and when you look over the brink you can 
see the breakers springing up at you like a drove of white wolves. 
I suppose there has been as much crime, suffering, sin and blood 
in the past of Dunluce as in that of the other old castles, which, 
thank Heaven, have had their day. There are no tenants now 
except the peaceful sheep that graze in the old court-yard. The 
watchman of these walls now is the wind, that wanders about day 
and night, and with its invisible fingers keeps the floor of one 



A GLIMPSE OF ULSTER. 179 

little tower always clean. But the people thereabouts say the 
sweeper is the Banshee. 

Going back toward Belfast, I parted with my old friend of 
some thirty-six hours at Coleraine, as he was going on to Dublin. 
But I had business elsewhere, as I will explain. 

One of the early contractors on that singularly ill-constructed 
job, my education, was an Irish priest. I remember very little of 
the labors of Father Flaherty (that was not his name), save that 
he was accustomed to stand me up in a corner and try to teach 
me to speak in the florid Irish manner, "There was a sownd of 
rivelry bee noight ; " but I remember finding in his library a thin 
book with a flaming orange cover — of which I did not then un- 
derstand the significance. It was a poem — or rather a rhyme — 
about the "Siege of Derry." How such a work ever found its 
way into the collection of his reverence, I have no idea, for it was 
the most ferociously Protestant publication I have ever read. 
How it did go on about King James and the rest ! But I remem- 
ber, bitter as it was, it had a good word for one of the "opposi- 
tion," the subject of the melancholy couplet: 

"Brave Patrick Sarsfield, one of King James's best commanders, 
Now lies, the food for crows, in Flanders." 

This little but savage poem, perhaps, led me to go to London- 
derry. At any rate I went there. 

The road from Coleraine runs most of the way along a plain 
by the sea, though sometimes under the shadow of high moun- 
tains. Of the points of the road, I remember for one, Ballyrena ; 
for in the waste plain, wet, ill-cultivated, miserable, I saw the 
Irish "cot" — a pretty word in poetry, a beastly thing in reality. 
The low walls, the thatched roof patched with turf, the little 



180 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

stack of peat, the dunghill in front of the door — all combined to 
make a most God-forsaken human habitation. I understand they 
have refused to canonize Christopher Columbus. He ought to 
have been made a saint of the first magnitude, for he gave to man- 
kind a new world, where men have got away from such squalid 
places as these Ballyrena huts, not only in Ireland but all over 
Europe. 

With Limavady, or Limavady Junction, more pleasant recol- 
lections are connected. It was here, or near here, that Thackeray 
met "Peg of Limavady." He celebrated her charms in many 
glowing verses, but we will all rise and sing this one: 

"This I do declare. 

Happy is the laddy, 
"Who the heart can share 

Of Peg of Limavady. 
Married if she were, 

Blest would be the daddy 
Of the children fair 

Of Peg of Limavady. 
Beauty is not rare 

In the land of Paddy: 
Fair beyond compare 

Is Peg of Limavady." 

Derry is a rusty old town, and it is interesting only in what it 
has been. It has its wall yet, and I walked all around it and 
looked at the old iron guns which banged valorously at King 
James's army. Each gun bears the date 1642, and the name of 
some one of the London companies, the "Vintners" or the "Mer- 
chant Taylors," and so on. On a high pillar is Walker, the Epis- 
copal clergyman who nerved up the starving garrison till help, 
long delayed, came. Poor Walker ! — he lived too long. For a 
while he was regarded as a hero ; then he was brought into a long 



A GLIMPSE OF ULSTER. 181 

and aggravating war of pamphlets; then, not satisfied with being 
a hero once, he, notwithstanding his clerical office, fought as a 
volunteer at the battle of the Boyne and was killed, and his death 
only drew from King William, in whose cause he fell, the remark 
that he had no business there. And this was the end of it all, "a 
most lame and impotent conclusion." 

Derry has greatly changed since the days of the siege, and ex- 
tends far outside of the Walls. The old arm of the Foyle, that 
then encircled it on one side, is dry land now, and covered with 
houses. It was strange to stand on ground where men, emaciated 
with hunger, worn with watching and fighting, clung to their old 
guns to the last, rather than yield to a Roman Catholic enemy, 
and look across to the old lines of King James's army, and see ris- 
ing there the finest church in Derry, a Roman Catholic church. 
Walker's old foes had come again, and this time to stay. Time, 
more powerful than armies, had done what the sword could not 
do. . The priest, the minister of peace, had succeeded where the 
soldier had failed. 

I could not find in the town a local guide-book, but was told 
by some one that I might meet on the wall an old man who for 
many years had lingered about, and who was a repository of the 
history and traditions of Derry. I looked for him, and made in- 
quiries, but found him not ; and they said, carelessly, that he had 
not been seen for some months, and was probably dead. It 
affected me deeply, this thought of the poor old fellow, haunting 
the old wall, reciting to strangers for year after year with honest 
pride the glories of his town ; and at last suffered to drag himself 
away in a corner and die and be forgotten. Such is the fate of 
the world's humble historians. 



182 A KANSAN ABROAD. 

In the evening, I went away from Deny by the road I came, 
past Limavady, past Ballyrena, past Downhill, where the waves 
nearly meet the mountain, and so to Coleraine again. It was 
dark when I reached Belfast, where I took the steamer — and that 
is all I know about Ireland. 



Pike of Pike's Peak. 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 



THOSE who happened to be on the Plains in the old days, 
when the "star of empire" was on wheels — wagon wheels; 
when California was known as the land of gold, the North Amer- 
ican Eldorado, must have noticed on the broad, white, sun-baked 
highway, the passage of a team, the beasts being called, by a con- 
struction of the plural peculiar to their owner, "oxens." The 
wheelers were known as "Buck" and "Bright;" the leaders as 
"Tige" and "Golden" — the former as an allusion to his supposed- 
to-be ferocious and untamable disposition ; the latter possibly out 
of compliment to the destination of the outfit, or their prospects, 
but probably on account of the dull -yellow color of his hide, 
which was supposed to resemble the metal which had led his 
human friends to undertake the long and toilsome journey. 

Beside the oxen walked a man, who, in his length, his loose- 
ness, his "batteredness," and the hue. of his outer garments, re- 
minded one of an illy-jointed stovepipe in a country school house. 
He indulged in no fancy colors. His tone was dim, not to say 
subdued. The shock of hair which straggled from beneath his 



An Address delivered before the Kansas State Historical Society, at 
Topeka, February 19, 1877. 

(185) 



186 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 

slouch hat extended to the upper boundary of a coat, called, from 
the principal dye-stuff used in coloring it, "butternut." The coat 
extended to pantaloons of the same color, which were finally lost 
in tremendous boots — enormous piles of rusty leather — red from 
"long travel, want and woe." The man's countenance, painted 
by the hand of the "ager," was of a dull-yellow hue, not unlike 
the complexion of the ox, "Golden." From one corner of a 
gash in this attractive visage called by courtesy a mouth, trickled 
a fluid called "ambeer," which word I take to be a corruption of 
amber. The man carried no weapons except a whip, with a hick- 
ory handle long enough for a liberty-pole, with a lash in propor- 
tion. The whole thing was lamentably slow. The man shambled 
along as if his boots were made of lead, his loose joints threaten- 
ing to dissolve their union and erect several separate confedera- 
cies. The oxen jogged along like machines, with the exception 
of an occasional dash of enterprise on the part of "Tige." Yet 
the man kept up a constant, rambling, loud-voiced, complaining 
conversation with the oxen, the words varying only in the stress or 
accent, as: "You, Buck!" "You, Bright/" rising into an angry 
snarl when addressed to the Ishmael of the team, "You, TIGE!" 
Occasionally, when the wagon slid down a declivity, or had to be 
dragged up an ascent, the round-shouldered driver seemed to grow 
taller. He drew himself out like a spy-glass, and swinging the 
long lash around, gave it a crack that sounded like the report of 
a rifle, at the same time projecting from his leathern lungs the 
ejaculation, "Whoa! Haw!" that rang far out over the plain, and 
nearly took the oxen off their feet. 

So far we have said nothing about the wagon or its contents. 
It is only by the novel-writer's license that we can see most of the 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 187 

latter, hid from view as they are by the wagon-sheet. The prin- 
cipal figure in sight is, of course, the "old woman," an angular 
being who sits in front smoking a cob pipe, distributing fragments 
of conversation all around — now to the tow -headed children, 
who seemed to fill all the space in the wagon not occupied by 
the old woman; now in a querulous voice to her liege lord, who 
is driving the team, and now to the landscape generally, which 
the woman appears to regard with dislike, if not malevolence. 
A tall, slim girl, apparently about sixteen, whose attire consists 
of a sun -bonnet and a long, narrow -skirted, dark -blue calico 
dress, which does not hide her bare feet, trudges beside the 
wagon — the only living creature in the caravan who betrays 
even the faintest trace of possible prettiness or actual vivacity. 

These people pursue their journey, day after day, mile after 
mile. Every night the blaze of their camp-fire rises beside the 
stream ; every morning they leave a little heap of ashes. There 
they go, up hill and down dale ; they disappear in the passes of 
the Eocky Mountains, and there seems borne from them on the 
wings of the western wind, a sound — the echo of an echo — it is, 
"Whoa! Haw!" 

To these people thus described, and to all who bore to them 
a family resemblance, and who in 1849, and in subsequent years, 
crossed the Plains to California, came to be applied, by whom 
originally I know not, the general name of "Pikes." Various 
explanations have been given of the origin of the name. The 
most reasonable one is, that, there are in Missouri and Illinois 
two large counties named Pike, and separated from each other by 
the Mississippi river. In 1849 an immense emigration set in 
from these counties to California. In consequence, the traveler 



188 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK 

bound for the States, meeting teams, and asking the usual ques- 
tion, "Where are you from?" was answered, frequently, with 
"Pike county," meaning in some cases one Pike county, and in 
some cases the other. This led to the general impression that 
everybody on the road was from Pike county, or that the inhab- 
itants of Pike had all taken the road. Hence the general name 
of " Pikes," as applied to emigrants, especially to those traveling 
from Missouri, and, generally those migrating from southern 
Illinois and southern Indiana. Thus the popular song — the only 
poetry I ever heard of applied to this class of "movers," com- 
mences: 

"My name it is Joe Bowers, 

I've got a brother Ike; 
I'm bound for Calaforny, 

And I'm all the way from Pike." 

The impression conveyed by all this, that the two Pike coun- 
ties mentioned are semi-heathen regions, is certainly not correct 
at present. Pike county, Missouri, is one of the most flourishing 
of the Mississippi river counties — remarkable for the number and 
eminence of its politicians and lawyers ; while of the general ele- 
vation and excellence of that section of Illinois of which Pike 
county forms a part, it is only necessary to say that the author of 
this address was born in the adjoining county. 

But how did it come about that not only these two counties, 
but in the United States ten counties and twenty-odd townships 
and towns bear the name of Pike? I venture to say there are 
some even in this intelligent audience who cannot readily answer 
the question. There are doubtless hundreds of Pike county 
school -children who do not know. To answer this question, 
among others ; to recall, if but for a brief moments, the name of a 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 189 

half-forgotten hero — interesting to Kansas people as the first in- 
telligent American explorer of their State — is the object of this 
address. 

Zebulon Montgomery Pike was born a long time ago, as is 
evidenced by his name. I suppose it is forty years, at least, since 
any father or mother in this country has called a son by the 
Old-Testament name of "Zebulon." He was, in fact, born in 
Lamberton, New Jersey, April 27th, 1779. He was born amid 
the scenes of Washington's brilliant victory over the Hessians, 
(for Lamberton is now a part of Trenton,) and but three years 
after that event. "When Washington received his famous ovation 
at Trenton, in 1788, it is possible that the baby Pike was held in 
arms to see the hero pass under a triumphal arch, while the 
youthful beauty of New Jersey strewed his way with flowers. If 
ever a man was born a soldier, Pike was. His father was an 
officer in the revolutionary army, and was retained or recom- 
missioned in the regular army after the close of the war. Of the 
boyhood of our hero, little has been preserved. He was, how- 
ever, we know, a bright, courageous, studious boy, and when but 
little more than a boy was commissioned an ensign in his father's 
company of infantry. He was born, we may say, on a battle- 
field. His first serious work in life was to assume the duties of 
an officer in the army of his country; in that service he lived, 
and in that service he died. 

While Pike's narratives are spiritedly written, and in good 
English, they betray no evidence of very great literary attain- 
ments. He was, however, for the young army officer of his time, 
well educated. He early acquired a knowledge of Latin, French 
and Spanish and mathematical attainments certainly sufficient for 
the purposes of a military explorer. 



190 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 

One day in April, 1803, Mr. Barbe* Marbois, at that time at the 
head of the French treasury department, took a walk in a garden 
in Paris. Mr. Livingston, who was dining with Mr. Monroe, 
asked him ( Marbois ) to come into the house. After coffee, the 
French secretary of the treasury asked Mr. Livingston to step into 
another room a moment. The two gentlemen had a conversation. 
It was one of several such. Sometimes they were at St. Cloud; 
sometimes Talleyrand was a party; sometimes the First Consul, 
Bonaparte : and the result of these various chats was, that on the 
30th of April, 1803, was definitely settled the greatest land trade 
on record. So big was it, that the American Government did not 
know, nor did it realize for years afterward, how much land it had 
bought, or really where it was located. That accurate scholar, 
Senator Ingalls, says we bought Louisiana at the rate of a hundred 
acres for a cent. As we paid, in principal and interest, before we 
got through, $23,500,000, those who are quick at figures may be 
able to form some idea of the extent of the purchase. We bought 
it in good time. The English were ready to take New Orleans, 
and, during the closing days of the Spanish occupancy, we our- 
selves were about ready to take it by force. Not three weeks 
before the First Consul signed the treaty of cession, Talleyrand 
told Mr. Livingston 'that Louisiana was not theirs to cede. Mr. 
Livingston smilingly responded, that he (Mr. L.) knew a great 
deal better. Talleyrand still persisting, Mr. Livingston, still 
smiling, I suppose, remarked, that he was pleased to learn that 
Louisiana still belonged to Spain, as in that event we should take 
possession of it anyhow. This is supposed to have accelerated 
matters considerably. At any rate, we got Louisiana for money, 
and without a fight ; hence the Nebraska bill, hence Kansas, and 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 191 

the State Historical Society, and other things too numerous to 
mention. 

But what had we got? That was the question. The Span- 
iard, unfortunately for mankind, was not cleaned off the face of 
this continent. He fell back into Mexico. And where and what 
was Mexico? The Mexican war was waged, more than forty 
years afterward, to find out. You can imagine how uncertain 
things were in 1806. We scarcely knew where the Pacific ocean 
was, and Lewis and Clarke were sent to find out. They discov- 
ered Nebraska, Dakota and Oregon. We owned the Mississippi 
river, and we knew where the lower end of it was ; but we had 
no official knowledge of its source. And this brings our friend 
Pike on the scene of action. 

At the time Pike was selected to explore the sources of the 
Mississippi, he was twenty-six years old. He had no commis- 
sioned officer associated with him, and the official labor and 
responsibility of the expedition fell on him alone. He had 
under his command, one sergeant, two corporals and seventeen 
privates. He left St. Louis, August 9th, 1805, in a keel-boat sev- 
enty feet long. It was a slavish trip, though the country was not 
entirely a wilderness. The French for years had known all about 
the river. The amusement of the voyagers was fishing; their 
diet, I judge, principally catfish and whisky. There were 
American traders among the Sacs and other Indians. Pike says- 
they were great rascals. I presume it is not profitable to stop and 
argue the point. Pike was kind to the Indians, and always gave 
them all the whisky he could spare. He was very popular with 
them, I think. The party were going north, and it kept con- 
stantly getting colder. The powder fell into the river, and had 



192 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK 

to be fished out. In undertaking to dry it in pots, an explosion 
occurred. Lieut. Pike remarks "that it had nearly blown up a 
tent, and two or three men with it." Poor Pike — he was yet to 
experience a greater and more fatal explosion. The party went 
on — north all the time. The river froze up, and then they 
dragged their outfit on the ice. They reached the Sioux country, 
and spent much time with that deeply-interesting people. One 
of the chiefs was called The -Wind -that -Walks. I judge from 
the name that he was a great politician. 

Pike spent the winter among the frozen lakes, the snowy prai- 
ries and hemlock swamps of the far North, and collected a vast 
amount of information about the country and the numerous In- 
dians who inhabited it. In reading his narrative, you find tribes 
spoken of as numerous and powerful, that have now faded, not 
only from the face of the earth, but from the memory of man. 

After this toilsome trip, it would seem that our young officer 
ought to have been allowed to rest awhile in comfortable quarters 
at St. Louis, to which place he returned, April 30, 1806. But it 
is doubtful if Pike wished to rest ; in fact, it is almost certain that 
he did not. 

The military officer in charge of the Western country at that 
time was General James Wilkinson, a restless, bombastic, fussy 
old gentleman, with a rare faculty for getting into difficulties. As 
an officer in the Revolutionary army, he was concerned in the 
Conway cabal, a plot to supplant Washington, and place in his 
stead General Gates, an officer who afterwards got beautifully 
thrashed by the British at Camden. He turned up in the army, 
after being for awhile a merchant at Lexington, Kentucky, in 
1791 ; received Louisiana from the French in 1803, and contrived 






PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 193 

to get mixed up in the Burr business to such an extent that no- 
body knows to this day, I believe, which side he was on. He was 
investigated, court-martialed, and acquitted ; went into the war of 
1812; served on the Canada frontier; was a conspicuous failure; 
was court-martialed again, and again acquitted; and finally, there 
being no opportunity in those days to enter the lecture field, he 
wrote his memoirs, and retired to the City of Mexico, where he 
died. 

Gen. James Wilkinson in his day was probably the subject of 
more uncomplimentary remarks than any man of his caliber in 
the country, and I deem it no more than justice to say for him, 
that, with all his faults, he was the steadfast friend of Zebulon M. 
Pike. 

It was in obedience to General Wilkinson's orders that Pike 
started on his second expedition — the tour to Kansas. Pike left 
Belle Fontaine, a little town near the mouth of the Missouri, July 
15, 1806. He had with him a party of Osages who had been re- 
deemed from captivity among the Pottawatomies. His instruc- 
tions were to take these back to their friends on the headwaters of 
the Osage river, on the border of what is now Kansas; then to 
push on to the Pawnee republic, on the upper Republican river, 
on the way interviewing the Kaws; then to go south to the Ar- 
kansas and Ked rivers and try to find the Comanches. On arriv- 
ing at the Arkansas, Lieut. Wilkinson (a son of the General ) and 
a party were to be detached and sent down that stream to Fort 
Adams, on the Mississippi, while Pike was to make his way to 
the Red river and descend it to Natchitoches, Louisiana. 

I have spoken of the uncertainty that prevailed in regard to 
the extent of our purchase from France, in the vast, vague region 

N 



194 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 

known as Louisiana. In consequence of this uncertainty, Pike 
was warned not to encroach upon the limits of New Mexico, or 
New Spain. As we shall see, this is precisely what he did. 

Pike ascended the Osage river in accordance with his instruc- 
tions. The Osage is a now half-forgotten thoroughfare. Within 
forty years, however, it has been an important highway (if that 
term may be applied to a river ) of commerce. In the old time it 
was a traveled road. The Catholic missionary on his way to the 
Osages, followed the stream; trappers and traders innumerable 
crossed and re-crossed it, and worked their way up and down it. 
It was the road from southern Kansas, and what is now the In- 
dian Territory, and even Texas, to the great trading-post of St. 
Louis — the religious, commercial and political capital of upper 
Louisiana. 

The Osage, the continuation of our own Marais des Cygnes, is 
a lovely stream; a succession of placid reaches of deep water, 
separated by rippling, shoaly shallows. On the one bank or the 
other for miles, rise cliffs, sometimes to the height of two hundred 
feet; sometimes as smooth and uniform as the wall of a house, 
dropping sheer from the dark cedars that crown their crest to the 
water, but oftener worn in fantastic shapes, jutting over at the top 
like the leaf of a table ; stained brown and red and yellow by the 
iron within and the weather without; their bases hid in fallen 
masses of rock and the narrow belt of green trees that grow to the 
edge of the bright water. The windings of the stream are contin- 
uous ; a few strokes of the oar bringing the voyager in view of an 
entirely new prospect. The shadow of the cliffs sometimes hides 
the darkling stream on the one side, sometimes on the other, and, 
rowing by moonlight, your boat is now in the midst of a lake of 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 195 

burnished silver, the drops from the dripping oars sparkling like 
diamonds, and in a moment, turning a point, you seem entering 
one of those mysterious streams that flow through caverns. The 
river winds through a thinly-settled country, and for miles the 
solitude of cliff and forest is unbroken. It often seems as if, at 
the next turn, you would come upon a grassy point with an In- 
dian encampment, with its curling smoke and "its young barba- 
rians all at play." You half expect to see, darting across the 
stream in your front, the canoe filled with its blanketed and 
painted crew ; and this impression of the presence of a vanished 
race is strengthened by seeing on the rocks the vermilion-hued 
symbols and signs, bows, arrows and buffaloes, painted by some 
savage artist long ago. May the day come when some abler pen 
than mine shall write thy story, fair Osage, from green Marais du 
Cygne, the "Marsh of the Swan," to where the Missouri rolls its 
devouring flood over the site of the once gay French frontier vil- 
lage of Cote Sans Dessein. 

Pike is accused by his biographer, Whiting, of indifference to 
the charms of natural scenery : he slightly berates him for speak- 
ing of some picturesque eminences on the upper Mississippi as 
"prairie knobs;" yet Pike remarked the beautiful cliffs of the 
Osage, and even the French trappers, rudest of men, designated 
one point as "La Belle Koche" — the beautiful rock. 

In the last days of August, the journey by water was ended, 
by the arrival of the party at the Osage villages, situated on a 
beautiful prairie. Here they had much to do with a chief named 
White Hair, whose name has descended to our times. Where the 
villages were located, it is hard to ascertain by Pike's map, but 
they were probably not far from the eastern line of Linn county. 



196 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK 

The Osages were found to be greatly under the influence of the 
then and now powerful commercial house of Chouteau. As an 
evidence of the early influence of the French over the Western 
Indians, Pike was told by Chtoka (possibly Chetopa) that he, 
a Little Osage, was in the action known as " Braddock's Defeat," 
in 1755, and that the Kaws arrived after the battle; that they 
were absent from their villages seven months, and were obliged 
to eat their horses on their return. This is a specimen of early 
Kansas enterprise. 

Leaving the Osage villages with horses procured there, Pike's 
party, consisting of himself, Lieut. Wilkinson, Doctor John H. 
Kobinson, Sergeants Ballenger and Meek, Corporal Jackson, six- 
teen private soldiers and Baroney Vasquez, interpreter, and a 
number of Osage Indians, started on a journey destined to be 
much longer than they expected. The course of the party was 
generally to the south and southwest, till Pike arrived on the 
summit of a high ridge, which he describes as a dividing line 
between the waters of the Osage river and the Arkansas, (the 
final syllable of which word Pike invariably spells saw.) He 
says, what many people have said since: "The prairie, rising 
and falling in beautiful swells, as far as the sight can extend, 
presented a very beautiful appearance." Marching westward, 
the party reached the Neosho, then called Grand river. This 
crossed, they followed up the stream, keeping on the divide as 
Pike says, between the Verdigris and the Neosho. An immense 
amount of game was seen. Pike says that, standing on a hill one 
day, he saw in one view, buffaloes, elk, deer and panthers. The 
country is described as dry and rocky, and water scarce. 

On the 17th of September, Pike reached, going northwest, 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 197 

what he describes as the main southwest branch of the Kansas 
river. It was the Smoky Hill. Two days after, they crossed a 
large branch of the Kansas, strongly impregnated with salt. It 
began to rain, and Pike says, that while in camp, "we employed 
ourselves in reading and in pricking on our arms with India ink 
some characters which will frequently bring to our mind our 
forlorn and dreary situation, as well as the happiest days of our 
lives." One source of the trouble which oppressed Pike, was the 
conduct of the Osages who formed part of the expedition, and 
whom he describes as a "faithless set of poltroons, incapable of a 
great and generous action." On the 23d, a stream was reached 
which Pike believed to be the Solomon. 

About this time, Pike discovered something that must have 
astonished him as much as did the footprints in the sand the 
worthy Robinson Crusoe. It was the trail of three hundred 
Spanish troops. It was even so. The Spanish authorities in 
New Spain, hearing from St. Louis of the departure of Pike's 
expedition, had sent Lieut. Malgares, a distinguished officer, with 
one hundred dragoons and five hundred mounted militia, from 
Santa F£, and led animals to the number of two thousand and 
seventy -five, to intercept him on the Red river. Malgares 
marched down Red river, then north to the Arkansas, and there 
leaving his used-up animals, marched north to the Saline, where 
he met the Pawnees and the Iatans, or, as we call them, the Co- 
manches. These last, Malgares received with great ceremony. 
He sallied forth with five hundred men, all on white horses, 
except himself and two principal officers, who were mounted on 
black ones, and was received on the plain by fifteen hundred of 
the savage chivalry in their gayest robes. 



198 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK 

Malgares did not intercept Pike; but they met afterwards, as 
we shall see. 

The expedition reached the Pawnee village, high up on the 
Kepublican, on the 25th of September. Then there was an im- 
mense amount of riding around in circles, and smoking of pipes 
between Pike and his Osages, and the Kaws and Pawnees. Pike 
found that the Spaniards had left several flags in the village, and 
the banner of Spain was floating from a pole in front of the head 
chief's lodge. Pike had twenty white men against the Pawnee 
nation; but he ordered the Spanish flag hauled down and the 
American colors run up — and it was done. Pike took possession 
of the Spanish flag; but the chief seeming grieved about it, Pike 
gave it back to him, with strict injunctions not to raise it again — 
and so the stars and stripes first kissed the breezes of the Kepub- 
lican valley. While at the Pawnee village, Pike heard that 
Lewis and Clarke had safely descended the Missouri river on 
their return. The star of empire was up and shining. 

I may say in passing, that this village, according to tradition, 
was on the present site of Scandia. 

The Pawnees became insolent and thievish; but Pike over- 
awed them by his bearing. He never yielded anything to an 
Indian. 

From the Pawnee town the route bore southwest to the Arkan- 
sas. Pike describes the place where he reached the river, as a 
swampy, low prairie on the. north side, and on the south a sandy, 
sterile desert. The river he describes as five hundred yards wide 
from bank to bank, the banks not more than four feet high, and 
thinly covered with cottonwoods. 

On the 28th of October the party divided. Lieut. Wilkin- 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 199 

son and party in one canoe, made of four buffalo skins, and two 
elk skins, and a wooden canoe made of green cottonwood, set sail 
down the Arkansas. Lieut. Wilkinson took with him four sol- 
diers and two Osages. He had not gone far till he was obliged to 
abandon the canoes and march on foot, suffering greatly from 
cold. Lower down, he made some wooden boats, and with great 
trouble from floating ice and sand-bars, pursued his journey. He 
reached Arkansas Post on the 9th of January. The navigation 
of the Arkansas, in winter, is not a success. 

Our traveler is now on the shores of the Arkansas, It is the 
last of October, and snow is falling almost every day. The party 
has been weakened by the departure of the second in command 
and a considerable portion of the force. If Pike goes south, he 
will obey his instructions, and will reach Red river. But he does 
not go south, but turns his face to the west, and follows the Ar- 
kansas. He is going to leave Kansas for Colorado. 

Before he goes, let us sum up his opinion of Kansas. He had 
visited the "Border Tier;" he had seen the valley of the "Great 
Neosho;" he had crossed the Smoky Hill, and visited the valleys 
of the Solomon and Republican ; and at this present moment, was 
in the western portion of the great Arkansas valley. And this is 
what he wrote : 

"In this western traverse of Louisiana, the following general observa- 
tions may be made. From the Missouri to the head of the Osage river, a 
distance in a straight line of probably three hundred miles, the country 
will admit of a numerous, extensive and compact population ; from thence, 
on the rivers La Plate, Arkansaw and Kansas, and their various branches, 
it appears to me only possible to introduce a limited population. The in- 
habitants would find it most to their advantage to pay their attention to 
the raising of cattle, horses, sheep and goats, all of which they can raise in 



200 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK 

abundance, the earth producing spontaneously sufficient for their support, 
both in winter and summer, by which means their herds might become im- 
mensely numerous; but the wood now in the country would not be sufficient 
for a moderate population more than fifteen years, and then it would be 
out of the question to think of using any of it in manufactories, conse- 
quently their houses would be built of mud bricks (like those in New 
Spain); but possibly time may make the discovery of coal mines, which 
would render the country habitable." 

The proud Kansan of 1877 living in a "dobe" hut and tend- 
ing goats! How was that for a prophecy? 

Pike, though not a very devout person, saw something provi- 
dential in this. He says: 

"From these immense prairies may arise one great advantage to the 
United States, viz., the restriction of our population to certain limits, and 
thereby a continuation of the Union. Our citizens being so prone to ram- 
bling, and extending themselves on the frontiers, will, through necessity, be 
constrained to limit their extent on the west to the borders of the Missouri 
and Mississippi, while they leave the prairies, incapable of cultivation, to the 
wandering aborigines of the country." 

If Pike were alive now, he might ask himself the question, 
"Does restriction restrict?" 

It must be remembered, however, that Pike was a soldier, not 
a farmer. That he came into the country directly from the heavy 
woods of the Osage, which made the prairie seem more desolate; 
that in marching he kept the high and dry divides ; and, further- 
more, that nothing could be more monotonous than his method of 
traveling — creeping along all day between the green earth and 
the blue sky, or the brown earth and the gray sky, as the case 
might be, with but two men in the party with whom he could 
converse on terms of familiarity; harassed by anxiety; frequently 
at a loss as to his course, and finally lost altogether. It is not 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 201 

strange that Pike did not indulge in the "gentle zephyr" line of 
remarks entirely proper to a Kansas real-estate agent of our time. 

As Pike is now leaving Kansas, we might now take leave of 
him, but his brave young life, so quickly sped, was so crowded 
with incident, that I crave your patience while I mention as 
briefly as possible what further befell him. 

It kept growing colder as he approached the mountains, follow- 
ing, as he did, the course of the Arkansas. He saw, for the first 
time, wild horses; he saw Indians frequently, and occasionally the 
trail of the Spanish expedition; and on the 15th of November he 
saw something else. 

"At two o'clock in the afternoon," says he, " I thought I could 
distinguish a mountain to our right, which appeared like a small 
blue cloud; viewed it with a spy-glass, and was still more con- 
firmed in my conjecture, yet only communicated it to Dr. Robin- 
son, who was in front with me ; but in half an hour it appeared in 
full view before us. When our small party arrived on the hill, 
they, with one accord, gave three cheers for the Mexican moun- 
tains." 

What was before and around Pike at that moment, is thus de- 
scribed by a Kansas writer, once known to us as "Deane Mona- 
han:" 

"If you stand upon a certain bluff on the Purgatoire, you will be a 
spectator of a scene not easily forgotten in future wanderings. Eastward 
stretches dimly away the winding, sedgy valley of the dreariest river in 
the West — treeless, sandy, desolate. All around you are the endless un- 
dulations of the wilderness. Westward is something you anticipate rather 
than see — vague, misty forms lying upon the horizon. But while the world 
is yet dark around and below you, and there is scarce the faintest tinge 
of gray in the east, if you chance to look northward you see something 
crimson, high up against the sky. At first it is a roseate glow, shapeless 



202 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 

and undefined. Then it becomes a cloud castle, battlemented and inac- 
cessible, draped in mist, and with a hovering curtain of changing purple. 
But as it grows whiter and clearer, the vague outlines of a mighty shape 
appear below it, stretching downward toward the earth. What you see 
is "the lofty pinnacle which has gleamed first in the flying darkness, sun- 
kissed and glorified in the rosy mornings of all the centuries. It is Pike's 
Peak, sixty miles away." 

Pike measured the altitude of the mountain afterwards named 
in his honor. He made out its height ahove the level of the 
prairie, to be 10,581 feet, and 18,581 feet above the sea. The jour- 
nal says: "In our wanderings in the mountains from the 14th of 
November to the 27th of January, it was never out of our sight, 
except when we were in a valley." Pike, whose nearest approach 
to the Peak was fifteen miles, believed it to be inaccessible, but 
climbing it has been an everyday matter since a Kansas woman, 
Mrs. Julia Archibald Holmes, the first lady who ever attained the 
summit, set the brave example. 

We will not dwell upon the days of cold and hunger which 
followed, when the emaciated men, clad only in summer clothes, 
dragged their frosted limbs through the gathering snow, while the 
poor starved, bruised horses, fell senseless in their tracks. Pike 
had wandered far from Red river, and pushing to the southwest, 
reached not that stream, but the Rio Grande del Norte. On the 
west fork of this stream he erected a stockade according to the 
principles of military art, for Pike was a soldier in everything, 
and here he was eventually captured by a force of Spanish troops, 
being informed that he was in Spanish territory. The party were 
marched in the direction of Santa Fe. The New-Mexican people 
were kind to the poor frozen, famished soldiers. At every house 
the women invited the party to stop and eat, and the old men 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 203 

caused their daughters to dress the frozen feet of the northern 
strangers. 

Mexico was then a splendid despotism. The blue-blooded 
Spaniard does not work himself, but he has great executive abil- 
ity in making other people work. The Indians were reduced to 
slavery, the lower order of white people were but little better off, 
and all worked beneath the vigilant eye of the priest and soldier. 
Yet the country prospered. Those who know Mexico as it is 
now, can scarcely believe the stories Pike tells of its richness. 
His story must have sounded like an Arabian tale, in 1806, for at 
that time Mexico was farther off than Australia is now. Pike 
saw, at Santa Fe, James Pursley, said to be the first American 
who had penetrated to that point by way of the great Plains. 

Pike was virtually a prisoner, his papers and instruments were 
taken from him, but he was kindly treated. He was escorted 
from place to place by a company of dragoons, the detachment 
being commanded for some time by Lieut. Malgares, who some- 
time before had been looking for him in Kansas. Of this officer, 
Pike speaks in terms of admiration and affection. Pike never 
compromised his dignity. As an American soldier, he believed 
himself the peer of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain. 
He was met as an equal by the Spanish officers; and so the little 
party of Americans marched from town to town along the sunny 
highways of Mexico. Pike received all sorts of presents. The 
Governor of one province sent him a shirt and neckcloth, with 
his compliments, wishing him to accept them, as they were made 
in Spain by his, the Governor's, sister, and had never been worn 
by any person. Pike and his men, after their terrible sufferings 
in the mountains, must have hugely enjoyed their trip in Mexico; 
and our gallant Captain, though said to be indifferent to the 



204 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 

beauty of mountain, vale and stream, appears to have had a good 
eye for female loveliness. He invariably notices the ladies he 
met; his general comment being, that, though a trifle too heavy 
as to weight, they certainly had the finest eyes in the world. 
Pike seems to have been a great favorite also with the worthy 
padres of the country, who labored many a time and oft for his 
conversion to the Catholic religion. 

It was on the first day of July, 1807, when, all his wanderings 
and sufferings and delays past, Pike reached Natchitoches, Lou- 
isiana, the point for which he had set out a year before. Here 
he closes his journal with the words: 

" Language cannot express the gayety of my heart when I once more 
beheld the standard of my country waved aloft! All hail! cried I, the ever- 
sacred name of country, in which is embraced that of kindred, friends, and 
every other tie which is dear to the soul of man." 

In a letter to General Wilkinson, Pike once said : 

"Did not an all-ruling passion sway me irresistibly to the profession of 
arms and the paths of military glory, I would long since have resigned my 
sword for the rural cot, where peace, health and content would at least be 
our inmates." 

His desire for advancement was gratified, and he was soon pro- 
moted to be major of infantry. 

In 1812, five years after Pike's return from the West, the war 
with Great Britain broke out. It was a stupid war, brought about 
by the insufferable bullying of the British government, which at 
that time seemed determined to mix in everybody's affairs, and 
provoke the united hostility of all creation. We were illy pre- 
pared for war. Our leading military men were a lot of old 
humbugs left over from the Kevolution: such was Hull, who 
surrendered at Detroit; such was Wilkinson, who mismanaged 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 205 

everything. As a result, the enemy burned our capital, while 
Admiral Cockburn ravaged the hen-roosts of the Chesapeake. On 
the water we had generally good success, and modified consider- 
ably the opinion that "Britannia rules the waves." On land, our 
men sometimes stood, as at New Orleans, and sometimes they 
scampered off, as at Bladensburg. We succeeded in making some 
generals out of young men like Winfield Scott before the war was 
over, and so saved ourselves from total disgrace. 

Pike hailed the war with enthusiasm. In 1810 he had been 
placed in command of a regiment of regular infantry, which he 
drilled after a fashion of his own, in three ranks — the third rank 
being armed with short guns and pikes, an idea their commander 
probably got from the lancers he saw in Mexico. 

In a short time, though only thirty-four years of age, he was a 
brigadier-general on the northern frontier. 

If you go to the Kansas State library you will find in the 
dingy, narrow pages of old Hezekiah Niles's Eegister for the year 
1813, the following dedication : 

IN TESTIMONY 

OF 

RESPECT TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE, 

BRIGADIER GENERAL, 

WHO FELL GLORIOUSLY BEFORE YORK, IN UPPER CANADA, 

AND 

JAMES LAWRENCE, 

CAPTAIN IN THE NAVY, 
KILLED ON BOARD THE CHESAPEAKE, FIGHTING THE SHANNON, 

THIS VOLUME OF THE WEEKLY REGISTER IS DEDICATED. 

The former happily expired on the conquered flag of the foe : the 

latter died exclaiming, " Don't give up the ship ! " 



206 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 

The story is soon told. 

Our troops and fleet, the latter under command of Commodore 
Chauncy, lay at Sackett's Harbor. On the 25th of April, 1813, 
the fleet took on board 1,700 men, and sailed for York (now To- 
ronto), a fortified post commanded by Gen. Koger H. Sheaffe, 
who, by-the-way, was a native of Boston. Pike was in imme- 
diate charge of the troops, and, on the morning of the 27th, 
watched their debarkation from the deck of one of the vessels. 
Our men, on landing, were met by a sharp fire from a body of 
British riflemen and Indians. Pike, witnessing the fray, said, 
"I can't stand this any longer," jumped into a boat, ordering his 
staff" to come on, and pulled for the shore amid a shower of shot. 
As soon as he reached the shore he formed his line and drove the 
enemy before him, demolishing a portion of the Eighth Gren- 
adiers, who formed to check him. In a little while Pike re- 
formed his line, and moved on the outer line of works. A heavy 
battery in front was carried at once. In the meantime a British 
battery further back was giving some annoyance, and Pike or- 
dered his men to lie down until a couple of light guns could be 
brought up to silence the enemy's fire. This was done in a few 
moments, and everything was quiet, awaiting the surrender of the 
place. Pike had j^st aided in removing a wounded man, and 
was seated conversing with a prisoner, when there was a tremen- 
dous explosion ; the light of day was shut out by a pall of smoke, 
and the air seemed to rain missiles. The British magazine had 
been fired. Pike was crushed to the earth by a huge stone; his 
aid, Capt. Nicholson, was killed by his side, and the forms of 232 
dead and wounded men strewed the ground when the smoke had 
lifted. 



PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK. 207 

Pike, horribly crushed, but conscious, was taken on board one 
of the vessels of the American fleet. In time, the British garri- 
son flag, which had been hauled down, was brought to him. He 
motioned to have the conquered banner placed beneath his head. 
It was done, and in a moment, the brave young fellow, who first 
in a Kansas wilderness flung the bright flag of his country to the 
breeze, and bade a horde of savages to know it and respect it, had 
passed away. 

He was buried with every demonstration of grief and respect, 
at Sackett's Harbor. 

And now, having finished his brief story, let us turn to the 
wilderness he traversed, and of the future of which he had so 
little hope, and mark the successive steps of empire. 

Pike had lain in his quiet grave six years when the wild 
woods of the Missouri were startled by a new sound, and the 
turbid waters of the sullen stream parted before the prow of 
the first steamboat. Five years more, and as waters rush in when 
a mill-gate is lifted, the trains moved out on the great road, eight 
hundred miles long and two hundred feet wide, leading from the 
Missouri to Santa Fe\ Then the wilderness began to blossom, not 
with roses but with men, soldiers, hunters, explorers, teamsters. 
In 1827 the drums of the Third Infanty greeted the sun on the 
beautiful bluff at Leavenworth. Pike's flag had come to stay; 
and from Fort Leavenworth, like Roderick Dhu's fiery cross, it 
was carried over the Plains in every direction, by Leavenworth, 
by Dodge, by Riley, and many more whose names now dot the 
Western country. In 1842 came Fremont, the Pathfinder, and to 
the southward the flag rose, a silent reminder to the Osages, at 
Fort Scott. After the flag came the cross, borne by the Jesuit 



208 PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK 

fathers, even now quiet old men, spending the evening of their 
days at Osage Mission. Then came '49, the rush for California; 
^amp-fire answered to camp-fire for a thousand miles, and with 
the moving throng came Mr. Pike and Mrs. Pike and the chil- 
dren, and "Buck" and "Bright," and "Tige" and "Golden"— 
and you know the rest. 

I cannot close without saying a word more about my hero. 
His was a most heroic soul. The day before he sailed across 
Lake Ontario to meet his fate, he wrote to his father : 

"I embark to-morrow in the fleet at Sackett's Harbor, at the head of 
1,500 choice troops, on a secret expedition. Should I be the happy mortal 
destined to turn the scale of war, would you not rejoice, oh, my father? 
May heaven be propitious, and smile on the cause of my country. But if 
I am destined to fall, may my fall be like Wolfe's — to sleep in the arms 
of victory." 

A writer who has visited that quiet spot on the lake shore, 
where so many years ago they laid him down to sleep, describes 
the wooden monument erected to his memory and the memory of 
those who died with him, as a worn, defaced, shattered, broken 
and forgotten thing. And yet he has another monument, an 
eternal monument, erected by the hand of God; and may we 
not hope that in our day, when old stories are being retold ; 
when men are recalling the brave days of old; when history is 
being written as it never was before, that the name of Pike may 
emerge from the mists of forgetfulness, even as comes at sunrise 
from out the darkness, the brightness and the whiteness, the 
beauty and the glow of the Peak that bears his name. 



The World a School. 



THE WOELD A SCHOOL. 



IN a State which had elections before it had legal voters ; rail- 
roads before it had freight and passengers for them; and 
newspapers before it had printing offices ; a State which one of its 
gifted and honored sons described in a magazine (which rose, fell 
and faded because it was published before it had readers), as the 
"hottest, coldest, driest, wettest, thickest, thinnest country in the 
world," there can be nothing surprising or worthy of apology in 
the fact that, on an occasion like this, an individual should be se- 
lected to speak to classical scholars, who does not himself know 
one Greek letter from another; and who, so far from knowing 
anything of the Latin particles, does not know a particle of 
Latin ; that one should be chosen to address, with an implied obli- 
gation to instruct, gentlemen who are proficient in the mechanic 
arts, yet who himself could not construct a symmetrical toothpick, 
even with the plans and specifications before him ; nor that there 
should be delegated as the "guide, philosopher and friend" of 
teachers and students of the science of Agriculture one who, 
should there arise in future times a contest like that which has 



Annual Address, delivered before the Kansas State Agricultural Col- 
lege, at Manhattan, May 26, 1875. 

(211) 



212 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

raged over the authorship of the "Letters of Junius," might be 
put forward as the probable writer of that singular compendium 
of ignorance, "What I Know About Farming," instead of the 
late Horace Greeley. 

While thus disclaiming any necessity for an apology, your ora- 
tor will not, however, avail himself of ten thousand time-honored 
precedents, and, after first announcing that he is " entirely unpre- 
pared to make a speech," proceed to demonstrate the truth of 
that preliminary remark to the absolute conviction of everybody; 
but, avoiding educational bays and inlets which he has "never nav- 
igated, will head out to the sea which no man owns ; which has 
no beaten paths; over which the man who sails, though it be for 
the thousandth time, still sails a discoverer — a ten-thousandth 
edition of Christopher Columbus; and, instead of speaking of 
this man's books, and of that professor's school, he will speak of 
a book which no man wrote, and which is not yet completed ; he 
will discourse of a University for which men's schools and col- 
leges and universities are, at the very best, but a slight prepara- 
tion : and these thoughts and suggestions will be brought together 
under the general title of " The World a School." 

Possibly some may inquire by what process a speaker, con- 
fessedly ignorant of many valuable things found in books, and 
deprived by chance, circumstances, and, in early life, want of in- 
clination to acquire what is commonly called an education, has 
obtained the knowledge which he proposes to impart; from what 
store-house, they may ask, does he propose to draw his facts and 
inferences? The reply is, that this qualification and these facts 
and applications are obtained through what is itself an educa- 
tional process, although it is never mentioned in the educational 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 213 

journals, or discussed at the teachers' institutes, or supervised by 
that oppressive mystery, the Bureau of Education at Washington; 
and this sort of education is called in America and by Americans, 
"Knocking About." 

The course varies with every scholar, and occupies various 
periods of time. With most Americans it lasts from early man- 
hood, sometimes from early boyhood, to the end of life. It is 
the fate of very few to graduate early; to find some sailor's 
snug-harbor where they may ponder over what they learned, and 
be knocked about no more. The students of Knock About Uni- 
versity cannot locate on the map the seat of that institution; 
it has no special post-office address. Like love, it is found in 
the camp, the court, the field and the grove. The student 
resides at no particular boarding-house; and, as I have said 
before, the course varies with each student, though the course is 
by no means optional, since the student frequently pursues 
branches which he does not fancy; and, indeed, instances are 
of record where the course has suddenly ended at the branch 
of a tree. In the course of his studies the student may be 
transported from the banks of the Ohio to those of the Sacra- 
mento, and thence to the James. He may be transferred from 
the society of students of the Septuagint to that of the professors 
of the seven-shooter. He may become in turn, or be all at once, 
a preacher, a newspaper correspondent, and a soldier. He may 
be at the same time a member of a presbytery and of a general's 
staff, and perform at once, and in different ways, the functions of 
an embassador of Heaven and of the Sanitary Commission. To- 
day he may be learning to set type, and to-morrow building a 
church ; to-day he may be fearlessly denouncing sin and wicked- 



214 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

ness, and day after to-morrow fighting a narrow-gauge railroad. 
In none of these pursuits is he adhering to what I am informed is 
called a "curriculum;" and in the prosecutions of these various 
labors he may not open a text-book for weeks together. And 
yet, he is all the time acquiring knowledge which mortal man 
never yet extracted from between the covers of any book ever 
written by man. In these years his hands are hardening for the 
work they have yet to do; his shoulders are widening for the bur- 
den they have yet to bear; his sinews are strengthening for the 
race he has yet to run; his heart is enlarging for those he has yet 
to embrace in its sympathies; and his mind is acquiring that 
breadth and force, vigor and clearness which will at last be re- 
quired in the instruction of — it may be you, young ladies and 
gentlemen ! It is hardly necessary for me to say that the rough 
sketch I have just drawn is not intended as the outline of an 
autobiography. Far less useful and brilliant has been the career 
of your fellow-student of the evening. And yet it may be, that 
even in the experience of years spent in the enforced wanderings 
of a common soldier ; of other years passed even in the humbler 
walks of a profession created within a century or two, specially to 
record day by day the progress of this busy world ; of years filled 
in with a mass of reading, even though careless and unsystematic ; 
it may be that, in all these years, some knowledge which may be 
imparted to others has been acquired of that world which Shak- 
speare says is all a stage, but which, for this evening, we will con- 
sider is all a school. 

If there is any one thing that there has been a settled endeavor 
to impress upon the minds of the students of this Kansas State 
Agricultural College, it is, that neither at this nor any other insti- 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 215 

tution of learning, neither at Manhattan, nor at Gottingen, nor 
Tubingen, nor at any other place that ends in "ingen," can be 
acquired what some people are pleased to call a "finished" edu- 
cation. This institution does not, if I correctly understand its 
purposes, teach the young idea how to shoot. It merely endeav- 
ors to furnish him with powder and shot, and expects him to do 
his own shooting ! All that is learned here is, as I understand it, 
only intended as a preparation for the student who is going out to 
become a gownsman, as the English would say, in that great uni- 
versity, the World. 

I say "going out into the world," and I use the expression 
advisedly. The young man or woman who has passed twenty 
years of life, who has known something of struggle and toil, 
incurred possibly to avail himself or herself of the advantages of 
this very institution, may think that he or she is already in the 
midst of the great world ; but this is hardly the case. New York 
harbor is a part of the ocean; the water is salt and sometimes 
rough, and the breeze that blows over it is fresh and strong, and 
the tide rises and falls ; but no ships are ever seen under full sail 
in its waters. They are towed about by steam tugs, and it is only 
when you are outside of the Narrows, and the tug has cast off and 
the pilot is gone, that you are at sea ; and the difference is, that 
from that time, on her journey through light and darkness, 
through sunshine and storm, near the low reef or sunken rock, 
for thousands of miles, until the once familiar stars are gone and 
even the heavens are strange, the good ship must care for herself 
alone. For days she sails the lonely deep, nor sees the faintest 
glimmering of a friendly sail. When the sky grows black, the 
waves grow white, and the vessel rolls and groans like a sick man 



216 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

in his sleep, she cannot run into a friendly harbor ; her salvation 
depends on her keeping off-shore. If there are defects in her 
construction, if she is ill-manned, or if her rigging is worn when 
she leaves port, she cannot return to mend these defects. Cour- 
age and skill on the part of the officers must repair damages and 
provide against calamity. But there is no going back. She is 
at sea. 

And this it is that makes going out from an institution like 
this really going out into the world, because it marks the limit 
between dependence and self-help. The student here obeys rules 
and regulations prescribed by others; he reads books placed in 
his hands by others ; he receives opinions, to some extent, because 
they are promulgated by authority: but when he steps out of 
these bounds, all this ceases. He is his own man then. A 
Frenchman, relating an experience in England, and illustrating 
the omnipresence of the English officers of the law, said: "I was 
alone with God — and a policeman." And so the newly-gradu- 
ated is alone in the world — with a diploma. 

That diploma is a good thing. Your speaker wishes he 
possessed one: he would prize it, even though it were written 
in newspaper English. But, after all, the parchment only tells 
what has been done— and it does not always tell the whole truth 
about that. In a healthy soldier's discharge from the service are 
the words, "No objection to his being reenlisted is known to ex- 
ist." I imagine that sentence might be written with propriety on 
an occasional diploma. The graduate might go back and go 
through the course again, without injury. But, admitting that 
the diploma has been well and fairly earned, it is only an evidence 
of work worthily done, so far — of a good beginning. It is, at 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 217 

the best, a certificate that John Smith or Jane Smith, as the case 
may be, has made a good start toward acquiring an education, 
and is prepared, as far as the institution conferring the diploma 
can furnish a preparation, for entrance in that greater, higher 
school, the World. 

And right here, over the question what sort of preparation 
should be furnished, has been fought the battle of the educators. 
It is over this that the great educational gods have kept "this 
dreadful pother o'er our heads;" it is over this that it has 
thundered all around the sky ; it is over this that usually 
mild-mannered men have shot wrathful glances through their 
gold-bowed spectacles, while every fold of their white neckcloths 
swelled with indignation. The result of the battle has been the 
establishment of two varieties of colleges: one teaching the 
classics, and conferring the information that "Achilles's wrath" 
was "to Greece the direful spring of woes unnumbered," and 
also furnishing the truly gratifying information that Major 
General Xenophon, with ten thousand men, has fallen back 
from Eichmond to the Chickahominy, and now has the enemy 
just where he wants him; and the other variety teaching the 
modern languages, natural sciences, agriculture and the trades. 
Possibly this may not be an exactly accurate statement of the 
case, but it must be taken as the account given by a passing 
reporter who took no part in the row himself. 

But, seriously, men must take the world as they find it, and 
what kind of a world does the graduate find when he leaves the 
halls he has paced so long? Is it like an old-fashioned college? 
The sinking heart of many a young man as he has stood in the 
midst of the surging, careless, seemingly selfish, rude, well-nigh 



218 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

merciless crowd for the first time, has told him that the world is 
no green college campus ; that the men he must meet day in and 
day out, with whom and from whom he must earn his daily bread, 
are not professors or students; are not men of culture; that they 
are not interested in the woes of Greece, but are vastly concerned 
about their own woes, their own business and their own dinners. 
Stand where meet the thronged ways in a great city, and notice 
what men carry in their hands, under their arms, or in their 
breast pockets, and you will find out something about this world. 
Here goes a painter with his bucket of white lead ; there goes a 
carpenter with his square ; here passes an Italian with a board on 
his head, covered with plaster-of-Paris figures; here, one after an- 
other, pass a dozen clerks with pencils over their ears, and bits of 
paper in their hands and papers sticking out of their pockets; 
shop-boys pass repeatedly with bundj.es; here walks a round- 
shouldered chap with the end of his right thumb and finger dis- 
colored and worn off* a little — he is a printer, and takes a brass 
composing-rule out of his pocket and puts it back again; men 
pass with hods, with mortar-boards, with trowels ; there may pass 
once in a while a young gentleman, a smile irradiating his class- 
ical features — that is a reporter, going to congratulate with the 
coroner over an approaching inquest. 

This little panorama shows how men live ; how you, my friend, 
with the bright and shining diploma, must live. Suppose you 
wish to find out what these men know. Quote, if you please, 
something from Homer, in the original Greek; something affect- 
ing; the best thing there is in the book about Achilles's wrath and 
the woes of Greece. Try this on the most intelligent-looking man 
who passes, and if he is a Kansas man — as he probably will be, 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 219 

if he looks uncommonly intelligent — he will look at you in a 
pitying way, and remark that it is a burning shame that the In- 
sane Asylum at Osawatomie was not enlarged, or a new one built, 
years ago. It is evident that the gentleman does not know Greek. 
And if you will look further, you will find before long a man in 
the crowd who cannot translate the simplest Latin sentence, who, 
nevertheless, has a diploma at home written in that language. 
But the trouble is, that shortly after his graduation, the exigencies 
of life obliged him to cease to trouble his head about how long 
Cataline intends to abuse our patience, and, abandoning all con- 
cern about the woes of Greece, he went into the soap-grease line 
of business. A few moments, then, passed where men may be 
seen about their ordinary vocations, shows us that the world, 
which we have said is a school, is likewise an Industrial School. 
A vast majority of men are engaged in industrial pursuits, and 
this, too, without regard to the circumstances of their early educa- 
tion. To this complexion men must come at last. 

Admitting this to be true, and it most certainly is true, what 
sort of preparatory school is the best for a young man or young 
woman who must, in time, enter this great industrial school, the 
World? The question is easily answered. The preparatory 
school should be the same, in kind, as the advanced department. 
It should be what the Boston Latin school has so long been to 
Harvard. Common sense, to be plain about it, indicates that 
the transfer should be from the primary industrial school. 

But some people say the office of colleges and universities is 
not to prepare young men and women for the rugged vocations of 
life, but to impart to them mental culture. Culture is good; but 
the question arises, What is the best culture? A man might 



220 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

take a quarter-section of raw prairie, break it, harrow it, and 
finally seed it down to marigolds; and that would be culture. 
The result would be beautiful. A thing of beauty and a joy, till 
frost comes, would be that field of marigolds. What eye would 
not kindle when "jocund day stood tiptoe on the misty mountain- 
tops," pointing with rosy fingers to those one hundred and sixty 
acres of glowing, golden marigolds? But the man owning the ad- 
joining quarter breaks up the prairie sod and puts the entire tract 
in onions — and that would be culture, too. The onion is not an 
aristocratic vegetable; it is not admitted into good society. When 
the opera house is a blaze of light ; when the wealth of empires 
glitters in diamonds on necks of snow ; when the echoes of deli- 
cious music fill the high hall, and the vast drop-curtain as it falls 
trembles responsive to the applause that swells from parquet, 
boxes and galleries, no admirer ever throws at the feet of the 
child of genius, the embodiment of beauty and melody, a dewy 
bouquet of fresh-culled onions. And yet, to return to the kind of 
culture in the prairie, public sentiment, leaning over the rail 
fence and commenting on the two quarter-sections, goes with the 
raiser of onions; applauds the thoroughness of his culture; re- 
marks the admirable condition of the ground and the absence of 
weeds: and the man of onions goes down to his house justified 
rather than the other. I confess that I am a partisan as between 
marigolds and onions. I am an ultra onion man, myself. 

But, leaving this discussion, it is to be taken for granted, stu- 
dents of the Kansas State Agricultural College, that you have 
made up your minds to cast in your lot with an institution which 
can say to you when you leave it for the last time: "Go, my son, 
go, my daughter ; I have done all I could for you : would that it 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 221 

were more. I do not send you forth filled with dreams and 
visions. The world is a working world, as I have told you often, 
and I have fitted you as best I could to begin that work. You, 
my son, may not rise to what the world calls distinction. It may 
not be yours, the 'applause of listening Senates to command,' but 
you may, please God, live honestly and worthily, and eat the 
bread your own hands have earned. And you, my daughter, go 
hence, freed from woman's bane and curse — an ignorant helpless- 
ness; you go with skillful, trained fingers, and an honest heart, 
into a world that has need of you and such as you." 

Graduated from this school and entered upon that other 
school, the World, who, what, where, are the teachers? They 
are around, above, beneath you ; they are yourself, man and na- 
ture. He who hath ears to hear, let him hear in the world the 
myriad voices that speak to him. Let him find the "tongues in 
trees, the books in running brooks, the good in everything," of 
which the self-taught Shakspeare wrote. But time passes; we 
cannot call the roll of the faculty of the University of the World, 
and so I make a few suggestions addressed more particularly to 
the graduating class, and those who are soon to follow them. 
There is a phrase, I believe it is called a "slang phrase" — though 
whose function it is to say what is slang and what is not, I do not 
know — but the phrase runs this way: "Be good to yourself." It 
is not an exhortation to selfishness — men don't need that. It 
means respect yourself, take care of and do not squander yourself. 
You will find that if you are not good to yourself, no one else will 
be good to you. You owe no apology to anyone for being here. 
You have as good a natural right to a front seat as any boy or 
girl who goes to the World's School. 



222 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

This institution, I am informed by the President and members 
of the Faculty, is not intended for the exclusive production of 
Presidents of the United States, nor does it guarantee to its grad- 
uates situations in the United States Senate; but it is well enough 
for young gentlemen to remember that genuine distinction is to be 
attained in the line of agriculture and the mechanic arts. As an 
illustration of the dignity of agricultural pursuits, you often hear 
the quotation, that "he who makes two blades of grass grow where 
one grew before, is a public benefactor." The whole paragraph, 
which may be found in Gulliver's Travels, is still more striking. 
It reads: "And he gave it for his opinion, that whosoever could 
make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot 
of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of 
mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the 
whole race of politicians put together." 

You see, then, that the raising of two blades of grass will make 
you of more value than the whole race of politicians; and, in my 
opinion, if you raise but one blade the result will still be the 
same. But, indeed, in the field of agricultural discovery there 
still seems to be boundless room. The books say that neither 
Indian corn, potatoes, squashes, carrots nor cabbages were known 
in England until after the sixteenth century. Who knows how 
many new vegetables are yet to be invented or improved? Fame 
may have something in store for you in that line. Your name 
may yet be carved on the perfect watermelon of the future. Old 
men can remember the advent of nearly every improved agricul- 
tural implement which we now consider indispensable. It is the 
happy combination of farmer and mechanic who is yet to achieve 
triumphs in the field of agricultural invention. Then, there is 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 223 

the great vocation of teaching agriculture and the mechanic arts, 
in schools established for that purpose. This is new ground. 
The school established in Switzerland by Fellenberg, counted the 
first, or among the first, agricultural schools, was founded in 1806, 
less than seventy years ago; and most of the work in that line has 
been done since 1844 — and still the surface of the ground has 
only been scratched. To those who have a genuine literary talent, 
a readiness in the use of written words, an ability to tell things so 
that people will read them, and, combined with this, have a prac- 
tical knowledge of the subject of agriculture, I can say that, in 
the opinion of those who do not write on agricultural subjects, 
there is much to be done. A great deal is written on agricultural 
questions which is regarded by a careless and hard-hearted world 
as the perfection of balderdash — the sublimated quintessence of 
moonshine. But is there not some one to be for this country and 
this time what Arthur Young was for England at the close of the 
last century? A bold and bright man was Arthur Young. His 
account of a tour in France, prior to the outbreak of the French 
Revolution, is quoted, by every historian of that struggle, as a 
most faithful picture of the brutalized and degraded condition of 
the oppressed French peasantry, which led to the final explosion. 
Said Young, in the account of his tour: "The fields are scenes of 
pitiable management, as the houses are of misery. To see so 
many millions of hands that would be industrious, all idle and 
starving. Oh, if I were legislator of France, for one day, I would 
make these great lords skip again." Thus wrote Arthur Young, 
farmer, reporter of the Morning Post, tourist, political writer, and 
correspondent of Washington. He wrote many books, among 
them a work on Ireland and its agricultural condition and re- 



224 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

sources. The material for a portion of this work was collected in 
1776, just one hundred years ago, and it is still quoted by the 
latest writers on Ireland. Young wrote, not only what he knew 
himself, but what others found out. The cattle-breeding experi- 
ments of Robert Bakewell, who was not himself a writer, were 
described and commended by Young. Who of the graduates of 
this institution will be our Arthur Young, to write agricultural 
books to be read a hundred years hence, and have it said of him, 
"He will be illustrious in all succeeding days, as long as the profit 
of the earth is for all, and the king himself is served by the field"? 

To those who propose to follow the mechanic arts, it is unneces- 
sary to say that it is the skillful mechanic rather than the soldier 
who now goes where glory waits him. This is the mechanic's 
age. He is the reigning monarch now, and we all take off our 
hats to him. He is the Prospero of this our island, and steam is 
the monster Caliban that does his bidding. I doubt if there is a 
man before me who would not rather wear the laurels of Capt. 
Eads, the designer of that wonderful bridge at St. Louis, than to 
be President of the United States. 

You enter the World's School, then, under favorable auspices, 
and it remains only that you improve your opportunities; and 
let me say that you cannot always tell from appearances who is 
capable of instructing you. The teachers of the World's School 
are not always in uniform. For instance: your orator undertook, 
one day, to air the nautical knowledge he had obtained by a 
study of Mr. Fennimore Cooper's sailors, who are only equaled 
in naturalness by his Indians, and, in about five seconds, had his 
ignorance set in order before his face by the gentleman he was 
/kindly endeavoring to instruct. But who would have thought 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 225 

that the quiet gentleman in a frock coat, writing in an office, with 
a pencil over his ear, had really followed the sea for years? Such, 
however, happened to be the exact situation. You will find that 
rough-looking men, illiterate men, in fact, are often exceedingly 
well posted on some one or two things. If you ignore such you 
will lose something. And this you will discover : that men and 
women with naturally good minds, but who, from ignorance of 
writing, are unable to keep a diary, journal or memoranda of any 
kind, have frequently a very tenacious memory of matters which 
have come under their personal observation. The true method 
of investigation is that pursued by the newspaper reporter, who 
forms no theory in advance, but, on his arrival at the scene of a 
fire or a fight, takes the statements of all within reach, without 
regard to "age, sex, or previous condition of servitude." In the 
World's School, unless you are willing to accept all available 
information from all possible sources, you will never be a good 
scholar. 

There is a maxim, often quoted in connection with education, 
viz.: that "half a loaf is better than no bread;" but I may also 
be allowed to remark that one blade of a pair of scissors is pre- 
cious little better than no scissors at all, and so it is not well in 
this world to devote a year of precious time to a study which can- 
not be mastered in twenty years. Take, for instance, phonography, 
one of the many systems of short-hand. A knowledge of this art 
— by which I mean the art of verbatim reporting and nothing 
else — while doubtless a good thing to have, is not a prime neces- 
sity to one man or woman in ten thousand. The mass of reporters 
and writers for the press get along without it, and many of the 
best reporters who have ever lived were unacquainted with it. 
P 



226 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

Yet how many thousands of people, who really had no occasion 
to study it, have wasted time and money in the attempted acqui- 
sition. How many thousands, deceived hy the ease with which 
the theory of phonography is understood, have gone far enough 
to discover that they could not get practice enough in all the 
leisure hours of Methusaleh to make them good short-hand re- 
porters. A pile of double-ruled paper as large as this room could 
be constructed of the note-books of people who, after months of 
practice, have found they could not report even the slowest ser- 
mon, and on trying it found themselves struggling with the pot- 
hooks which represent "My beloved brethren and sisters" when 
they should have been making a crooked mark for "Amen." 
These people have simply tried to make a century plant bloom 
at two years old, that's all. Had they been wise they would have 
devoted their two years to something that can be learned reason- 
ably well — well enough to be used — in two years. Newspaper 
men, who really may be supposed to need phonography, as I have 
said, get along without it. They find it easier, in many instances, 
to sit comfortable while the entirely original, unpremeditated and 
impromptu discourse is being delivered, and then, approaching 
the speaker after he has concluded his remarks, hear him say, 
"Why, my dear sir, I was not expecting to have my hasty re- 
marks appear in print, but if it would be an accommodation to 
you, I can let you have the heads of my address — just a synopsis, 
you know." Whereupon he proceeds to draw from his right-hand 
coat-tail pocket the complete manuscript. 

The remarks made on the subject of phonography apply also to 
ineffectual or insufficient efforts to acquire a knowledge of the 
violin, and especially the flute. In regard to the latter instrument 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 227 

especially, not only self-interest but humanity to the neighbors 
demands that you should not waste your time in abortive tootings. 
If you feel it your duty to retire for a season from the haunts of 
men, and, forsaking everything else, cleave only to the flute until 
you become its master, it is well; but do not under any other cir- 
cumstances touch that instrument. 

Having warned you not to attempt the mastery of really de- 
sirable accomplishments unless you are sure that you have the 
aptitude and the leisure for their perfect acquirement, let me 
earnestly entreat you not to commit the great error of wasting 
golden hours in the discussion of matters which are of no vital 
importance. Beware of societies for the diffusion of useless 
knowledge ; assemblages of people who know nothing, to discuss 
matters of which nobody knows anything. Remember that the 
Almighty is the only being who is omniscient, the claims of vari- 
ous learned societies to the contrary notwithstanding. There are 
some things you will never know, and it is a good plan not to 
rack your brains over those things. The exact age of this world, 
for instance, can never be ascertained. Do not worry your mind 
by efforts to fix the precise hour in the forenoon at which the 
process of creation began. In these days when "science" is 
talked about by gentlemen whose knowledge of the correct spell- 
ing of the word science is a recent acquirement, I know it is dan- 
gerous to disparage what is called " scientific investigation." To 
speak lightly of such, exposes the speaker to the danger of being 
called "ignorant" by people who spell it with two g's; but still I 
will risk this frightful calamity by expressing the conviction that 
years devoted to labor which results at last, not in the discovery 
of a fact in nature, but merely in the elaboration of a theory, are 



228 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

wasted years. "What shall it profit a man?" is, after all, the 
question. What does it profit a man to handle over a large num- 
ber of skulls, and shout with rapture when he finds a monkey's 
skull which resembles his own ? He cannot know, after all, that 
that particular monkey was his relative. The glow of family 
pride which comes over him at first is soon dampened by the 
dreary reflection that there may be a mistake somewhere; that the 
depression in the monkey's forehead which gives it its startling 
resemblance to his own may be exceptional, may have been the 
result of accident in youth, a blow from a cocoanut in the hands 
of an irate parent, or something of the kind. 

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave," 

and the paths of this sort of "scientific investigation" lead us into 
the mazes of painful uncertainty. Our ancestral gorilla eludes 
our grasp like the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth. And if he did 
not, what then? Is there any present or practical good to be 
attained by dwelling on his merits or demerits, or in tracing pain- 
fully the line which leads from us to him, realizing, perhaps, 
that of late years the family has degenerated? 

But somebody, not a scientist, may ask, "Do you declaim 
against all investigation of the mysteries of Nature ? " Certainly 
not. Consider the grasshopper, how he grows. He is a mystery. 
Whence he cometh and whither he goeth, we cannot tell. Find 
out, if you can, why a miserable insect which a child can crush 
beneath its foot ravages whole States, while man, with all his 
boasted resources, seems powerless to resist him. Mysteries! 
secrets ! if you would investigate them, the world is full of them. 
The forces of nature, electricity and the rest, have existed from 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 229 

the beginning, but how long has man known of their power? — 
how much does he know now? The lightning flashed before the 
blinded eyes of Adam, but how long since the electric spark 
became not the terror but the friend of man? Steam curled up 
from the kettle of Tubal Cain, but how long since man knew how 
strong were the shoulders of the prisoned vapor which now bears 
so many burdens? Charcoal lay in the ashes of the first fire 
kindled by man on the earth; nitre formed on the walls of the 
cave, and sulphur lurked in the earth: but how long since 
man knew that these substances, harmless apart, were, linked 
together, a black conspirator who without warning can tear a city 
or a mountain to fragments? No man can say that further inves- 
tigation on these lines will reveal nothing. How long is it since 
gunpowder, supposed to be the most powerful of all explosive 
substances, was found to be to nitro- glycerine what a boy's 
strength is to a man's ? Investigation ! there is room for enough 
of that to fill the next thousand years, during which the question 
of our primitive gorilla-hood can be suffered to rest. 

In the World's School, as in the district school, a great hin- 
drance to study is too much whispering, too much noise, too much 
talk. The present age demands and admires action — not words. 
Said an intelligent gentleman, speaking the other evening of the 
British House of Commons : "A great orator is a great nuisance 
and a great bore." It will, I think, be so considered in this coun- 
try some day. It is certainly a consummation devoutly to be 
wished. If any of these young ladies or gentlemen have a habit 
of keeping still until they have something to say, they can rest 
easy in the belief that the world is coming round to their fashion. 



230 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

I think even now if Demosthenes were living, and were to repeat 
his experiment of the pebbles, he would meet with little sympa- 
thy. At this time, and I may remark, in this State, where we 
are so little advanced in the practice of Agriculture — the oldest 
of human vocations — that the failure of a single crop reduces us 
to the condition of Indians when the buffalo fails to put in an ap- 
pearance, and a piteous cry for "aid" goes up from one end of the 
State to the other — in such a State there is little time for speech- 
making. The world needs, nay more, will have, men, of action, 
not of mere words, either spoken or printed. A volume of 
speeches is not a very enduring monument, generally a fading 
and perishable one ; a fine bridge, a noble aqueduct, a row of ten- 
ement houses, built by generosity, not avarice, a beautiful farm- 
house — such are the monuments men should leave behind them. 
It is the impatience of the world with talk that leads to Carlyle's 
"Hero Worship," and such grim books as his Cromwell and 
Frederick; and who that reads these books does not imbibe a 
feeling of respect for men of action, rather than the men of pam- 
phlets, speeches and proclamations? Who, whatever may be his 
idea of the career, as a whole, of the first Napoleon, does not, in 
reading that last chapter save one in Carlyle's "French Revolu- 
tion," stand an admirer of that young artillery officer, Bonaparte 
by name, as he stands amid his guns at four o'clock in the after- 
noon of that October day, waiting the approach of that bloody 
mob of Paris who succeeded as rulers those "great lords" whom 
Arthur Young hated ? They are moving forty thousand strong ; 
their stray shot rattle on the staircase of the Tuileries ; they are 
very near. "Whereupon, thou bronze artillery officer? 'Fire!' 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 231 

say the bronze lips." Koar and roar again go his great guns, and 
" it was all over by six" said citizen Bonaparte in his report. The 
mob which had cut off the heads of many speech-makers had met 
at last a man of action. 

And yet, what is called a "talent for affairs" is not inconsistent 
with the possession of a kindly spirit, manifesting itself outwardly 
and visibly in perfect courtesy. Some of the busiest men I have 
known always found time to be civil. In the World's School 
you will find that your progress and happiness depend much upon 
your treatment of your fellow-students. The nineteenth is a good 
century for firm men ; it is a bad one for bullies — even of the 
pious variety. Lord Chesterfield was never wiser than when he 
exhorted his son always to be the friend, but never the bullyj of 
virtue. This you may depend upon, that you may lead your 
class but you will never drive it, except, perhaps, after the man- 
ner of the Irishman's horse, of which his enthusiastic owner ex- 
claimed, " Bedad, he's driving everything before him ! " As you 
cannot safely domineer over your fellows, so you may be sure you 
cannot long deceive them. The stolen composition will be found 
in your desk; the plagiarized speech will be detected. Blinder 
than the blindest bat that fluttered in dark Egypt's deepest dark- 
ness are those who put not their trust in God or man, but in 
tricks. Little traps, set by little men, are daily knocked to pieces 
beneath the very noses of their sagacious contrivers, and the 
world's derisive laughter rings out at " Strategy, my boy ! " 

This, then, in your intercourse with your fellow-students of 
this world, is the chief end of life : to be a gentleman ; and this 
includes the ladies, for a lady is but the feminine of a gentleman. 
To be a gentleman you have the world's encouragement, nay 



232 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

more, you have an angelic warrant ; for what says Thackeray in 

the "End of the Play:" 

"A gentleman, or old or young! 
(Bear kindly with my humble lays,) 
The sacred chorus first was sung 
Upon the first of Christmas days. 
The shepherds heard it overhead, 
The joyful angels raised it then; 
Glory to Heaven on high, it said, 
And peace on earth to gentle men." 

But I must not keep you here listening to words which, after 
all, may not be worth your remembrance, and which, in the hurly- 
burly of that world which soon, very soon, will open up before the 
youngest here, you will scarcely find time to remember; and yet 
the blessing and benediction of any human being, even that of 
the sightless beggar by the wayside, is worth the having. 

Young men, young women, crowding forward from the byways 
into the broad highway of life, may you do well the work that is 
waiting for your hands, realizing the obligation spoken of by Lord 
Bacon : " I hold every man a debtor to his profession ; from the 
which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and 
profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves by way of 
amends to be a help and ornament thereunto." 

May your lives resemble not the desert's bitter stream, which 
mocks the cracked and blistered lips of the fainting, dying trav- 
eler ; which but adds horror to the fiery desert, and sinks at last 
into the burning sands, to which it brought no verdure, no glad- 
ness — from which it received nothing but poison and a grave. 

May the course of your lives find no counterpart in the sluggish 
course of the dull bayou, a fungus among streams, which winds and 
doubles and winds again through miles of rank vegetation, which 



THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 233 

curtain its dark course, and shut out from its sullen waters the 
gladsome light of day; a waveless, tideless stream, in which rep- 
tiles of hideous shape crawl and glide and swim, and which at 
night seems to lie still in the darkness and listen to doleful and 
mysterious voices. May none of you ever live isolated from your 
kind, like those lakes which lurk amid dark, once-volcanic moun- 
tains, with no visible inlet or outlet; deep, self-contained, solitary, 
giving back no reflection save the dim images of scorched and 
barren rocks, and splintered peaks ; lakes on which nothing lives 
or floats, which hide forever in their dark bosoms everything cast 
into them. 

But may your lives be like the river which rises amid the pure 
snows of the bold mountain ; which, hurling itself over the cliffs, 
answers back the wild, free eagle's scream; which forces its way 
through the rocks that would impede it in its search for the val- 
ley ; which slakes as it goes the thirst of the deer, and washes the 
roots of the pine tree from which the flag of the far-sailing mer- 
chantman is yet to fly ; which turns the rude wheel of the moun- 
tain mill, and whirls in its eddies the gathering sawdust as it 
speeds from under the whirring, glittering teeth of steel it has 
bidden to rend the logs it has brought them. It grows wider and 
deeper, and more silent and yet stronger, as it flows between smil- 
ing farms and thrifty villages which owe their existence to the 
bounteous river. At night it sends its mist over all the valley 
and half way up the hills, like sweet Charity, who silently wraps 
in her sheltering mantle all the sons of men. It carries on its 
bosom all floating craft — the light canoe, the slowly-drifting raft, 
the arrow-like steamer. In time, its wavelets give back at night, 
in dancing gleams, the thousand lights of the great cotton mill, 



234 THE WORLD A SCHOOL. 

and, anon, its waters part before the prow of the new-built ship, 
as she glides down the ways to the element which is henceforth to 
bener home. Thus goes the shining river, the ever-useful, ever- 
blessed river; best friend of toiling man; fairest thing from the 
creative hand of God; — thus goes the river to mingle at last for- 
ever with the sun-lit sea. 



ik: a. jst s a. s 



Educational Publications 

By S. A. FELTER, A. M. 



FELTER'S ILLUSTRATED TABLE BOOK. 

Sample copies, by mail, 15 cents. 

FELTER'S PRIMARY ARITHMETIC. 

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FELTER'S NEW INTERMEDIATE ARITHMETIC. 

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FELTER'S ADVANCED ARITHMETIC. 

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FELTER'S ELEMENTS OF BOOK-KEEPING. 

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FELTER'S TABLETS. 

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and writing (24 numbers), 25 cents. 

COUNTY MAPS, for school use (25 copies), by mail, postpaid, 25 cents. 
A COMPLETE STATE MAP (13x22 inches), colored by counties, published 
especially for schools, by mail, postpaid, 10 cents. 

For wholesale or introductory rates of the above publications, address 

WESTERN SCHOOL SUPPLY AGENCY, 

Kansas Publishing House, Topeka, Kansas. 



THE 



Kansas Publishing House, 

TOPEKA, KANSAS. 



The Only Award to a Kansas House. 

The undersigned, having examined the product 
herein described, respectfully recommends the same 
to the United States Centennial Commission for 
award, for the following reasons, viz.: A' seven-quire 
book, prepared for show. The cut is tastefully 
printed, and binding and ruling faultless. 

GUSTAV SEITZ. 

Approval of Group Judges : (Signature of Judge.) 

James M. Wilcox. H. T. Brian. 
Edward Conley. C. O. Chapin. 

A true copy of the record. 

FRANCIS A. WALKER, 

r - ,. -, Chief of Bureau of Awards. 

[seal.. J 

A. T. GOSHORN, Director-General. 
J. L. CAMPBELL, Secretary. J. R. HAWLEY, President. 





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AND ARTISTIC BLANK-BOOK WORK KNOWN TO THE ART. 

BOOK AND PAMPHLET PRINTING EQUAL TO THE BEST IN 
THE COUNTRY. 



REAL ESTATE PRINTING, BONDS, MORTGAGES, AND GENERAL 
JOB PRINTING and MISCELLANEOUS BINDING in Splendid Style. 

The Annals of Kansas. 

A Dictionary of Kansas. Muslin, 691 pp., price $5.00. 

Felter's Improved School Records. 
The Educational Calendar. 

Price, twenty-five cents per annum. 

A Kansan Abroad, by Prentis. 

Price, $1.25. And other publications. 

Address, GEO. W. MARTIN. 















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